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A double line of concrete pyramids snakes its way across undulating farmland outside the city of Kherson. Anti-tank fortifications known as dragon’s teeth, the pyramids are a sign of the new defenses Ukraine is building in the south against an anticipated Russian offensive. In a village nearby, residents were focused on a more immediate task: collecting donations of building supplies. The people of the Kherson region have been slowly rebuilding their homes and livelihoods since a Ukrainian counteroffensive forced Russian troops out of the area west of the Dnipro River 18 months ago and ended a brutal occupation. Many have fixed their roofs, windows and doors, yet as they start to plant crops and tend their vegetable gardens, they are bracing for another Russian attack.

Locations: Kherson, Ukraine, Ukrainian, Dnipro

☆ Many Ukrainian Prisoners of War Show Signs of Trauma and Sexual Violence
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-28 | by ( Carlotta Gall | Oleksandr Chubko | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Ukrainian marine infantryman endured nine months of physical and psychological torture as a Russian prisoner of war, but was allotted only three months of rest and rehabilitation before being ordered back to his unit. The infantryman, who asked to be identified only by his call sign, Smiley, returned to duty willingly. But it was only when he underwent intensive combat training in the weeks after that the depth and range of his injuries, both psychological and physical, began to surface. “I started having flashbacks, and nightmares,” he said. Ukraine is just beginning to understand the lasting effects of the traumas its prisoners of war experienced in Russian captivity, but it has been failing to treat them properly and returning them to duty too early, say former prisoners, officials and psychologists familiar with individual cases.

Persons: Smiley, ”, “ Locations: Ukrainian, Russian, Ukraine

The fighting had become increasingly ferocious last month at the Zenith air-defense base a mile south of Avdiivka, where for years a company of Ukrainian soldiers had defended the southern approaches to the city. Russian troops had moved up on their flanks and were pounding them from all sides with tank, artillery and mortar fire, smashing their defenses and wounding men. “Every day we tried to repel enemy attacks,” said Senior Soldier Viktor Biliak, a 26-year-old with the 110th Mechanized Brigade, who had spent 620 days defending the base. “All the fortifications were being destroyed and there was no possibility to build new ones.”Soldiers interviewed after their retreat described an uneven four-month battle under a relentless onslaught of Russian artillery and glide bombs that destroyed buildings and broke through deep concrete bunkers. As the Ukrainians took casualties they became increasingly outnumbered by the Russians assaulting the city, who broke through at two strategic points and quickly seeded areas with fighters.

Persons: ”, Viktor Biliak Organizations: Zenith, 110th Mechanized Brigade Locations: Avdiivka, “

☆ Russia Took the City. Now It’s Coming for Their Villages.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-29 | by ( Carlotta Gall | Oleksandr Chubko | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Villagers living near the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka listened with dread in recent weeks to the sound of the bombs falling there, knowing their troops were taking a pounding and their villages were next in line. Russian troops captured Avdiivka 12 days ago and the front line has shifted westward, threatening the next Ukrainian farms and villages that lie in their path. “It is very tense right now,” said Oleksandr Kobets, a farmer who was butchering a pig in his yard. They are coming closer and closer.”The loss of the eastern city of Avdiivka has been a blow for Ukraine, coming amid declining Western support and a shortage of weaponry that left its outnumbered soldiers also outgunned. But for the farmers and miners and their families who live in this nearby stretch of towns and villages, Russia’s sudden advance is upending already hard lives, leaving them poised to flee.

Persons: Avdiivka, ”, Oleksandr Kobets Locations: Ukrainian, Avdiivka, Ukraine

Some 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began two years ago, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday, acknowledging for the first time in the war a concrete figure for Ukraine’s toll. “This is a big loss for us,” Mr. Zelensky said at a news conference in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. But he declined to disclose the number of wounded or missing, saying that Russia could use the information to gauge the number of Ukraine’s active forces. It differs sharply from estimates by U.S. officials, who, this past summer, put the losses much higher, saying that close to 70,000 Ukrainians had been killed and 100,000 to 120,000 had been wounded. Russia’s military casualties, the officials said, were about twice as high.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, ” Mr, Zelensky, Zelensky’s Organizations: U.S Locations: Kyiv, Ukrainian, Russia, Ukraine’s

☆ Weary but Determined, Ukrainians Vow Never to Bow to Russia
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-25 | by ( Carlotta Gall | Lynsey Addario | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Russian missiles struck the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv a couple of weeks ago, schoolchildren and their teachers installed in newly built underground classrooms did not hear a thing. “The children were fine,” said Lyudmyla Demchenko, 47, one of the teachers. “You cannot hear the sirens down here.”Ten years after the conflict with Russian-backed separatists broke out and two years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainians are weary but ever determined to repel the invaders. The war has touched every family — with thousands of civilians dead, close to 200,000 soldiers killed and wounded, and nearly 10 million refugees and displaced in a country of nearly 45 million people. Yet, despite the death, destruction and deprivations, a majority of Ukrainians remain optimistic about the future, and even describe themselves as happy, according to independent polls.

Persons: ”, Lyudmyla Demchenko, “ Locations: Russian, Ukrainian, Kharkiv

Ukraine ordered the complete withdrawal from the ruined city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine before dawn on Saturday, surrendering a city that had been a military stronghold for the better part of a decade, in the face of withering Russian bombardment and relentless assault. “Based on the operational situation around Avdiivka, in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen, I decided to withdraw our units from the city and move to defense on more favorable lines,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander, said in a statement issued overnight. The fall of Avdiivka, a city that used to be home to some 30,000 people but is now a smoking ruin, is the first major gain Russian forces have achieved since May of last year. In recent weeks, Russian forces have been pressing the attack across nearly the entire length of the 600-mile long front.

Persons: Gen, Oleksandr Syrsky Organizations: Russian Locations: Ukraine, Avdiivka

☆ A Child of Another War Who Makes Music for Ukrainians
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-26 | by ( Carlotta Gall | More About Carlotta Gall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When the owner of an underground club in Kyiv reached out to Western musicians to play in Ukraine, long before the war, there were not so many takers. But an American from Boston, Mirza Ramic, accepted the invitation, spawning a lasting friendship with the club’s owner, Taras Khimchak. “I kept coming back,” Mr. Ramic, 40, said in an interview at the club, Mezzanine, where he was preparing for a performance during a recent tour of Ukraine. The country, he said “is one of the places that has welcomed me most and been the most supportive of my music.” And so especially after the Russian invasion two years ago, he added, “I wanted to come now, to show my support in these hard times.”

Persons: Mirza Ramic, Taras Khimchak, “, ” Mr, Ramic, ” Locations: Kyiv, Ukraine, Boston

☆ Both Sides Pay a Bloody Price for Coveted Ukrainian City
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-30 | by ( Carlotta Gall | Nicole Tung | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Beside it a sprawling slag heap juts into the sky, offering a high point overlooking the city of Avdiivka and surrounding villages. Yet within days this battle for Avdiivka was shaping up to be perhaps the costliest of the war for Russia. Ukrainian artillery destroyed Russian armored columns on the approaches to the city, and drones armed with explosives struck down infantry as they dismounted from vehicles and advanced on foot, according to Ukrainian soldiers and commanders, Russian military bloggers and independent military analysts. Waves of Russian soldiers scaled the industrial waste heap to gain its heights. Each time they were shredded by Ukrainian artillery.

Persons: Avdiivka Organizations: Avdiivka Locations: Avdiivka, Ukraine, Russia, Ukrainian

☆ Their Sons Went Missing Fighting for Ukraine. They Want Answers.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Carlotta Gall | Oleksandr Chubko | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Hundreds of women draped in Ukrainian flags, carrying banners and balloons, chanted on the street around the corner from the president’s office last week. Blocked by police officers and sandbags, they called on President Volodymyr Zelensky by name. Zelensky!”Every so often an angry tirade cut through the noise. Public complaints about the conditions soldiers are suffering at the front, and the rising numbers of dead and missing, have been a phenomenon seen in Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. But last week’s demonstration was a rare venting on the Ukrainian side, from families desperate for news of soldiers who have gone missing in action over more than 20 months of fighting.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, “, ” Locations: Russia, Ukraine

☆ ‘We Are Accidentally Alive’: A Muslim Cleric Reflects on His War Experience
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Carlotta Gall | More About Carlotta Gall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An activist Muslim cleric in Ukraine with an arrest warrant over his head, Said Ismahilov had no doubt of the danger as Russian troops advanced on the capital, Kyiv, at the start of the war last year. He was then living in the tranquil Kyiv suburb of Bucha, which lay right in the path of the advancing Russian tank columns. Mr. Ismahilov pointed to the fields in front where he said farmers had doggedly harvested the wheat even in midst of a Russian rocket attack. At the time of the invasion, Mr. Ismahilov was one of the most senior Muslim clerics in Ukraine, but afterward, Mr. Ismahilov, 44, joined the Ukrainian territorial defense and served as the first Muslim chaplain in the Ukrainian military. He now also works as a combat medic with the medical charity ASAP Rescue Ukraine.

Persons: Said Ismahilov, “, ”, stretchers, Ismahilov Organizations: Muslim, Rescue Locations: Ukraine, Kyiv, Bucha, Russian, Ukrainian, Rescue Ukraine

☆ Ukrainian Accounts of Torture Point to Systematic Russian Policy, Expert Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-10 | by ( Carlotta Gall | More About Carlotta Gall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Russian authorities have failed so far to send a directive to their soldiers and the military command informing them that torture and such types of detentions and interrogations are not acceptable,” she said. “They deny they do it, but show me the military directive where torture is prohibited.”Moscow had failed to respond even to her recent offer to visit and report on the conditions of Russian prisoners of war held in Ukraine, she added. Of hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war held by Russia and released in exchanges, Ukrainian officials have said 90 percent suffered torture, including sexual violence, she said. Former prisoners of war held by Russia suffered a dangerous level of weight loss from starvation during their detention, she said. One former prisoner told her he had lost 40 kilograms — almost 90 pounds — during incarceration, and his hair had turned gray.

Persons: ”, “, Moscow, Edwards Locations: Ukraine, Australian, Izium, Russia

☆ On the Front Lines, Ukrainians Are Buoyed to Be on the Offensive
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-20 | by ( Carlotta Gall | More About Carlotta Gall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In 18 months of war, Ukrainian land has mostly changed hands in sudden bursts, with Russia snatching a mass of territory at the start and Ukraine recapturing chunks in dramatic counterattacks. Now 10 weeks into its most ambitious counteroffensive, with heavy casualties and equipment losses, questions have been growing about whether Ukraine can punch through Russian lines. Despite grueling fighting, Ukrainian forces along much of the 600-mile front are moving forward, and commanders and veteran soldiers say they are in better shape now than six or 12 months ago. Ukrainian officers are almost invariably upbeat in interviews. Even if the counteroffensive has yielded only mixed results so far, with Ukrainian troops slowed by dense Russian minefields and sustained firepower, they describe previous periods as being tougher than this one.

Persons: ” Col, Dmytro Lysiuk Organizations: 128th Mountain Assault Brigade Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Ukrainian

A battered worker’s van whizzed back and forth along a village road near the front line in southern Ukraine, searching. It screeched to a halt, and three men unloaded heavy equipment and disappeared into the undergrowth. What they were looking for, dug in and hidden under the trees, were three hulking British-made armored vehicles known as Mastiffs. Supplied to the Ukrainian Army for its attempt to retake Russian-occupied territory in southern Ukraine, the Mastiffs were in need of a service. Behind the thousands of Ukrainian troops assembled along the 100-mile front line for the counteroffensive is a small army of mechanics, engineers and weapon technicians responsible for keeping Ukraine’s growing fleet of Western-made tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment in working order.

Persons: van, ” Serhii Ivanov Organizations: Ukrainian Army, Huskies, Wolfhounds Locations: Ukraine, Russian

The images a reconnaissance drone sent back to Ukrainian forces provided a vivid portrait of the Russian side of the war zone. Damaged houses gave way to cratered fields on Ukraine’s southern steppe. A jagged Russian trench along a tree line had been blasted by American-supplied cluster munitions barely a week earlier, according to Lt. Ashot Arutiunian, the commander of the unit that recorded the images. This was on a recent morning, with Ukrainian artillery firing relentlessly, the deep rumbling explosions of the impact resonating in the distance. Mixed in were the louder explosions of Russian shells landing on Ukrainian positions.

Persons: Ashot Arutiunian Locations: Ukrainian, Russian, American

Most of the fighting has been hidden from the view of the news media since the start of operations in early June. Ukraine’s new brigades, trained and equipped according to NATO standards, have a different look and feel from many other Ukrainian units. These marines now carry American M4 assault rifles and drive Humvees, which they repainted, changing the desert brown of the vehicles so often seen in Afghanistan and Iraq to a deep green for better cover in Ukraine’s lush countryside. He watched as men from his unit loaded two laser-guided rockets into a launcher on the back of a Humvee for a firing mission. “It’s a great new system and we have new vehicles too,” he added.

Persons: ”, Ukrop, “ It’s Organizations: The New York Times, NATO, 38th Marine Brigade Locations: Afghanistan, Iraq, “

A commotion sounded at the entrance of the building, and a shout went up. Soldiers carried in two men on stretchers, one his lined face taut in a grimace, a third, with bloodstained pants, following behind. Within seconds the men were lifted onto operating tables and medics swarmed in, cutting off bloody clothes, hooking up drips, talking to the men in low voices. “Brother, you will make it,” the third soldier, Batya, called out to his friend with a chest wound. “Hold on, we have more to do.”Wounded just 40 minutes earlier on Ukraine’s southern front in the Zaporizhzhia region, the soldiers from the 110th Brigade had arrived at a stabilization point, one of a dozen medical stations set up by the Ukrainian Army within a few miles of the front line to ensure critical, lifesaving care.

Persons: “ Organizations: 110th Brigade, Ukrainian Army Locations: Zaporizhzhia

☆ Amid the Counterattack’s Deadly Slog, a Glimmer of Success for Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-30 | by ( Carlotta Gall | More About Carlotta Gall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For 10 days, Ukrainian marines fought street by street and house by house to recapture the southeastern village of Staromaiorske, navigating artillery fire, airstrikes and hundreds of Russian troops. The Russians put up a ferocious defense but that ended on Thursday when they folded and the Ukrainians claimed victory. The recapture of Staromaiorske, a small village that is nonetheless critical to Ukraine’s southern strategy, was such a welcome development for Ukraine that President Volodymyr Zelensky announced it himself. The counteroffensive has largely been a brutal lesson for Ukrainian troops, who have struggled to seize back territory across the southern region of Zaporizhzhia. In two months, Ukrainian troops have advanced less than 10 miles at any point along the region’s 100-mile front.

Persons: ”, Volodymyr Zelensky Organizations: 35th Marine Brigade Locations: Staromaiorske, Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia

The task facing the advancing Ukrainian troops is monumental. Since seizing Ukrainian territory in last year’s invasion, Russia has built a dense defensive web of minefields, trenches, bunkers, tank traps and other obstacles. Other American officials said that the most recent Ukrainian attack might be preparatory operations for the main thrust or reinforcements to replenish war-weary units. American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said on Wednesday that most of those reserves had been committed. Local occupation officials reported fierce battles raging south of Orikhiv, involving brigades of foreign-trained troops and armor donated by the United States and Germany.

Persons: David Guttenfelder, Igor Konashenkov, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky, ”, “ Organizations: 47th Brigade, The New York Times, Tass, Pentagon, “ Locations: Zaporizhzhia, Russia, Orikhiv, Robotyne, Tokmak, Russian, United States, Germany, Ukraine

Ukraine has launched the main thrust of its counteroffensive, throwing in thousands of troops held in reserve, many of them Western-trained and equipped, two Pentagon officials said on Wednesday, hours after Russian officials reported major Ukrainian attacks in the southern Zaporizhzhia region. A spokesman for Russia’s Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said the Ukrainians had mounted a “massive” assault with three battalions, reinforced with tanks, south of the town of Orikhiv, and then another a few miles farther south near the village of Robotyne, according to the state news agency Tass. Both were repelled, the ministry said. Other American officials cautioned that the latest Ukrainian attack might be preparatory operations for the main thrust or perhaps just reinforcements to replenish war-weary units. The challenge for the Ukrainians, since they began their counteroffensive in early June, has been to blast open a gap in the deep Russian defense network, and then try to pour through a much larger force.

Persons: Igor Konashenkov Organizations: Pentagon, Russia’s Defense Ministry Locations: Ukraine, Orikhiv, Robotyne

☆ They Were Captured by the Russians. Then the Hardest Fight Began.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Carlotta Gall | Daniel Berehulak | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Shot through the jaw and tongue by a sniper’s bullet last year in the last days of the grinding siege at the Azovstal steel plant in Ukraine, Senior Sgt. Maksym Kushnir could not eat or talk, and could barely breathe. But when he hobbled out of a bunker last May with hundreds of other wounded Ukrainian soldiers in a surrender negotiated with Russian forces, there was no medical help or any sign of the Red Cross workers they had been promised. “For the first three to four days, they did not do anything. They expected me to die on my own.”

Persons: Maksym Kushnir, Sergeant Kushnir, ” Organizations: Russian, Red Cross Locations: Ukraine, Russian

☆ ‘Everything Will Die’: A Dam Blast Imperils Ukraine’s Vital Lifeline
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-11 | by ( Carlotta Gall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The view from villagers’ gardens on the northern shore of Kakhovka Reservoir has changed significantly in the four days since an explosion destroyed the nearby dam and the waters receded. Mud flats stretch for hundreds of yards, and a long sandbar has emerged from the water reaching out across the bay. The water has already dropped below the critical level to resupply water to the plant, Ukrainian officials said. In communities downriver, the water unleashed by the burst dam flooded homes and swept away property and livestock within hours of the explosion. For those living upstream, the disaster has unfolded in slow motion, the reservoir dropping three to four feet a day.

Persons: ”, Tetyana Locations: Kakhovka, Russian

☆ Cross-Border Skirmishes Heighten Anxiety for Ukrainian Villagers
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Carlotta Gall | Oleksandr Chubko | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The forests around Vovchansk were burning, white smoke drifting through the pines and billowing above the treetops where artillery shells had started fires. Vovchansk and the other towns and villages along Ukraine’s northeastern border with Russia have lived under shellfire from Russian forces across the border for months. But near the northern border the anxiety centered on the continued cross-border hostilities, with both sides trading heavy volleys of artillery shells this week. Vovchansk, two and a half miles from the Russian border, is mostly a ghost town. Barely 1,000 people remain after months of shelling that has damaged many residential houses and central buildings, and most were hiding indoors.

Persons: — Locations: Vovchansk, Russia, Russian, Ukraine, Dnipro

☆ Shocks, Beatings, Mock Executions: Inside Kherson’s Detention Centers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Carlotta Gall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

They beat prisoners relentlessly and tortured them with electric shocks, waterboarding and mock executions. Yet such was their sense of impunity, the Russians who seized control of a detention center in southern Ukraine last year and filled it with 200 detainees were careless about concealing their identities. Last week, Ukrainian prosecutors announced war crimes charges against four members of the Russian National Guard — the commander who ran the detention facility and three of his subordinates. They were accused in absentia for cruel treatment of civilians and violating the laws of war. Investigators say they have uncovered hundreds of crimes that were carried out under the Russian occupation, including executions and deaths in custody, torture, sexual violence and beatings in the recaptured areas.

☆ Ukraine May Be Finally Getting the F-16s It Asked For. Why Did It Want Them?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Carlotta Gall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began over a year ago, officials in Kyiv have been asking their Western allies to supply the country’s air force with advanced warplanes such as the F-16. But the United States, which manufactures the fighter jet, was long reluctant to provide it, or to allow other countries that have F-16s to re-export them to Ukraine. How strong is the Ukrainian air force? Ukraine inherited a sizable but aging fleet of Soviet-designed fighter jets and helicopters, which is a legacy of its history as a part of the former Soviet Union. The Ukrainian air force fleet includes fighter jets such as the MiG-29, bombers, and transport and training aircraft, Col. Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the force, said in an interview on Saturday.

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