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☆ DNA Tests and Stranded Bodies: Ukraine’s Struggle to Name Its Dead
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-05 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The bodies of the two Ukrainian soldiers lay motionless in a field for months. The soldiers’ relatives identified their bodies from aerial footage gathered by drone. Andriy Zaretsky — were dead. Yet more than four months later, the Ukrainian military still lists them as missing, even though subsequent drone footage provided by a fellow soldier weeks later showed them still lying there. This confusion, and the lengthy, difficult process of obtaining official declaration of the deaths, is far from isolated, and has emerged as another painful consequence of the two-year-old war.

Persons: Serhiy Matsiuk, Andriy Zaretsky —, ”, Zaretsky’s, Anastasia Locations: Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s

☆ Russia Strikes Ukraine’s Railways and Vows to Slow Arrival of U.S. Aid
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Maria Varenikova | More About Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At least 31 civilians were injured and six killed in the attacks, according to the Ukrainian military and local officials. Three of the dead were railway workers killed by a strike in the Donetsk region. Russia also attacked a railway facility in the Cherkasy region but no casualties were reported. The latest attacks on the rail network came after Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, promised to target Western weapons as they arrived in Ukraine. “We will increase the intensity of strikes on logistics centers and storage bases of Western weapons,” he said in a speech Tuesday at the ministry.

Persons: Sergei Shoigu, “, ” Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Ukrainian

☆ Ukraine Is Denying Consular Services to Men Outside the Country
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-26 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Ukrainian officials have taken several steps in recent weeks to swell the ranks of an army depleted by more than two years of grueling combat. The government passed a new mobilization bill aimed at increasing troop numbers and has stepped up border patrols to catch draft dodgers. Now, officials are targeting men who have already left the country. This week the government announced that Ukrainian embassies had suspended issuing new passports and providing other consular services for military-age men living abroad. By suspending consular services, the government said, it was responding to demands for fairness in society.

Organizations: dodgers

Its towering smokestacks once puffed out clouds of steam. In gigantic machine rooms, turbines whirled around the clock. In the Soviet era, the Kurakhove Heating and Power Plant gave rise to the town around it in Ukraine’s east, driving the local economy and sustaining the community with wages and heating for homes. “Our plant is the heart of our city,” said Halyna Liubchenko, a retiree whose husband worked his entire career in nearby coal mines that fed the facility. That heart is barely beating now, partly destroyed by artillery.

Persons: ”, Halyna Liubchenko Organizations: Power Locations: Soviet, Ukraine’s, Ukraine’s Donbas

From the bloody trenches of the battlefield to crowded cities battered by Russian bombardments, millions of Ukrainians waited in nervous anticipation as the United States Congress prepared, after months of delay, to decide if America will resume providing their country with critical military support. Private Pavlo Kaliuk, who has been fighting to slow the Russian advance after the fall of the city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine earlier this year, was on his way to the funeral for a fallen soldier when reached by phone on Friday. “I am walking and thinking that maybe it’s my friend who died at war, who is up in the sky now, who will help the world and United States to support Ukraine,” he said. Ukraine cannot rely on divine intervention; instead it is counting on the House of Representatives to approve a $60 billion aid package on Saturday.

Persons: Pavlo Kaliuk, “, ” Organizations: United States Congress Locations: America, Avdiivka, Ukraine, United States

☆ Russian Missile Strikes North of Kyiv Kill at Least 14, Ukraine Says
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-17 | by ( Maria Varenikova | Marc Santora | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At least 14 people were killed and scores more injured when three Russian missiles struck a busy downtown district of Chernihiv, north of Kyiv, just before noon on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the death toll, reported by the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general, might rise and blamed Ukraine’s lack of air defenses for the loss of life. The prosecutor general said that 61 people were reported injured. “This would not have happened if Ukraine had received enough air defense equipment and if the world’s determination to counter Russian terror was also sufficient,” Mr. Zelensky said in a statement. Ukrainian officials did not comment on the apparent attack, but Russian military bloggers affiliated with the Kremlin reported that Ukrainian missiles had struck locations around the air base in Dzhankoi, Crimea.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s, Mr, Zelensky, ” Organizations: Kremlin, Ukrainian Locations: Russian, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Ukraine, Crimean, Ukrainian, Dzhankoi, Crimea

☆ Drones Strike Deep in Russia, as Ukraine Extends Its Weapons Range
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-02 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Exploding drones hit an oil refinery and munitions factory far to the east of Moscow on Tuesday, in what Ukrainian media and military experts said was among the longest-range strikes with Ukrainian drones so far in the war. The drones struck in the Tatarstan region of Russia, about 700 miles from Ukrainian-held territory. The targeted factory was built by Russia to produce its own arsenal of long-range attack drones that are based on an Iranian design known as Shaheds. Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone hit a dormitory at a factory in the Tatarstan region. In the video, a bystander can be heard yelling, “a drone hit the factory!”

Locations: Moscow, Tatarstan, Russia, Ukrainian

The Kremlin has fired its top naval commander, the biggest fallout yet from a series of devastating attacks by Ukraine on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, according to a Ukrainian and a Western official. Adm. Nikolai Yevmenov, the head of the Russian Navy for the past five years, was removed from command and replaced by the head of the Russia’s Northern Fleet. Russian publications, citing anonymous sources, reported on Sunday that Admiral Yevmenov had been fired. The Financial Times, citing Ukrainian officials, reported the development on Monday. U.S. officials have assessed that while Kyiv’s counteroffensive last year in eastern and southern Ukraine largely failed, its strikes on the Crimean Peninsula and attacks on the Black Sea Fleet were unexpectedly effective.

Persons: Adm, Nikolai Yevmenov, Yevmenov Organizations: Russian Navy, Fleet, Financial, Black Locations: Ukraine, Russia’s, Ukrainian, Crimean

As the war continued to rage in Ukraine’s east, much of its Western border was blocked on Tuesday by another fight, this one with Polish farmers. The farmers have for months been protesting an influx of Ukrainian products that they say is crowding the Polish market and undercutting their livelihood. On Tuesday, they obstructed check points for commercial transportation, halted the passage of about 3,000 Ukrainian trucks and opened some train cars containing Ukrainian grain, spilling it onto the rails. “It’s either us or them,” a Polish farmer said on Tuesday on the Polish TV channel Polsat News. “Someone must be interested in us.”The demonstration prompted a counterprotest in Ukraine, where previous blockades by Polish truckers have hampered the supply chain of goods reaching the country, causing shortages that have begun to affect soldiers on the battlefield.

Persons: It’s, ” Organizations: Polsat Locations: Polish, Ukraine

As outgunned Ukrainian soldiers struggle to hold back bloody Russian assaults on land, Ukraine said on Wednesday that its forces had struck yet another powerful blow against the Russians at sea, sinking a large Russian landing ship off the coast of Crimea before dawn. The Ukrainian military released footage of the strike, which it said had resulted in the sinking of the 360-foot-long landing ship Caesar Kunikov, its fourth-largest landing ship taken out of action in the war, possibly complicating Russia’s logistical efforts in southern Ukraine. The Ukrainian claims could not be immediately confirmed, but when NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, was asked about the attack, he called Ukraine’s campaign on the Black Sea a “great achievement.”“The Ukrainians have been able to inflict heavy losses on the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” he said at a news conference in Brussels. Russia has lost more than a third of its fleet since the war began, according to Ukrainian officials and military analysts.

Persons: Caesar Kunikov, Jens Stoltenberg, ” “, ” Locations: Ukrainian, Ukraine, Crimea, Russian, Brussels, Russia

☆ A New General Takes Over as Ukraine Struggles on the Battlefield
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Andrew E. Kramer | Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It was a strung-out, vicious spell of urban combat in the eastern city of Bakhmut last winter, and even as Ukraine was clearly losing ground in the fight, General Syrsky, then commander of the ground forces, had argued that the decision to defend was sound since Russia was losing more soldiers than Ukraine. Ukraine maintained what military parlance calls a favorable attrition ratio in the Bakhmut street fighting, but it did little to win backers for the general’s strategy among rank-and-file soldiers. Bakhmut ultimately fell, after Ukraine had lost thousands of troops in the grinding fight. The nickname “the Butcher” for General Syrsky is now widespread in Ukraine’s Army. In the two earlier successful battles — in the defense of the capital, Kyiv, and in the northern Kharkiv region — General Syrsky’s soldiers had turned to small-unit tactics and rapid maneuvers to defeat the larger, better armed Russian forces.

Persons: Oleksandr Syrsky, General Syrsky, Bakhmut, Syrsky, — Organizations: Russia, Ukraine’s Army, —, Ukrainian Army Locations: Bakhmut, Ukraine, Russia, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Russian, United States

☆ Russian Missiles Hit Ukrainian Cities Amid Fears Over Air Defenses
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The assault added to concerns about the state of Ukraine’s air defenses as Russian barrages continue on its largest cities. Ukraine’s air force said that 41 missiles had entered the country’s airspace early Tuesday. The Ukrainian authorities provide details of cruise missiles in flight, and residents can track them for about an hour as they fly from Russia. The ballistic missiles, which travel much faster, struck in Kyiv on Tuesday just as the cruise missiles arrived. “Most of missiles were ballistic, and our air force can’t down them all,” Mr. Ihnat said.

Persons: Yuriy Ihnat, ” Mr, Ihnat Locations: Russia, Kyiv

It was the middle of the night in early January when a Russian missile streaked in and exploded in the center of Kharkiv, blasting down walls and shattering windows. The next day, people went shopping and to work, ate out in restaurants and clogged the streets with traffic jams, almost as if nothing had happened. But behind the business-as-usual veneer, residents of Kharkiv have been seething. Over the past month, Ukraine’s second-largest city has taken the brunt of Russia’s missile campaign, which has killed and wounded dozens of people, blown up buildings and unnerved everyone. To vent, Kharkiv’s residents have a dedicated outlet: Radio Boiling Over, a new FM station.

Persons: Ukraine’s, It’s Locations: Russian, Kharkiv

The wife of Ukraine’s military intelligence chief has been poisoned and is recovering in a hospital, Ukrainian intelligence officials said on Tuesday, an incident that has led to widespread speculation that Russia was stepping up efforts to target Ukraine’s senior leadership. Andriy Chernyak, an official from the Ukrainian military intelligence agency, said that Marianna Budanova had been poisoned and was receiving treatment. Her husband, Kyrylo Budanov, is the head of the agency known as GUR and is one of the country’s most senior military leaders. Mr. Chernyak declined to speculate on the perpetrator or the type of poison used and provided no further details, citing the ongoing investigation. The agency’s spokesman, Andriy Yusov, later issued a statement with a similar account of the incident and said more information would be released as the investigation proceeds.

Persons: Andriy Chernyak, Marianna Budanova, Kyrylo, GUR, Chernyak, Andriy Yusov Locations: Russia

☆ Ukraine’s Children With Special Needs Suffer the ‘Huge Pressure’ of War
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Maksym, 13, needs a life of stability and routines, but almost two years of war in Ukraine have given him anything but that. The boy, his adult brother and his mother fled their home city, Mariupol, under Russian attack. He finds it hard to study, often becomes aggressive, and doesn’t want to wake up in the morning, she said. “He screams and throws things in the house,” she said. It often happens when he wants to do something like ride the bicycle he left behind in Mariupol.

Persons: Maksym, Mariupol, Maryna, “, ” Locations: Ukraine, Mariupol, Kyiv

The Russian soldiers turned up at her home close to midnight with an ominous message. “They said, ‘If in two weeks you don’t have a Russian passport, we will talk to you in a different way,’” recalled Evelina, a social worker who until this month lived under Russian occupation in southeastern Ukraine. She didn’t wait to have that conversation. Instead, she bundled a few possessions into a suitcase and left with her teenage daughter, heading for territory controlled by Ukraine. But for the estimated 4 million to 6 million Ukrainians living in Russian-held areas, as Evelina was, the stalemate means something more dispiriting: an occupation with no end in sight.

Persons: “, ’ ”, Evelina Locations: Russian, Ukraine, Europe

Ms. Vynokur, 26, the hardware store clerk, turned out for the training with a friend after seeing an advertisement on Instagram. “What attracted me is this is only for women,” she said. “As women, we are all on the same level,” she said. Of serving in the military, she said: “Everybody understands the war won’t be over in a month. It does not draft women, though recently it has required that women with medical training register for the draft.

Persons: Vynokur, ”, “ Locations: Kyiv

The family of Major Serhiy Kuznyev sensed something was wrong. He was not answering his phone. Officers in his unit refused to provide information on him. He had always told his family that he was deployed far from the front. “To us, he always said, ‘all is good,’” Anna said in a telephone interview.

Persons: Serhiy Kuznyev, Anna Kuznyeva, ’ ” Anna, “, Major Locations: Ukraine, Russian

Russian missiles struck a group of Ukrainian soldiers at an award ceremony in southern Ukraine, killing some and leaving others wounded, two senior Ukrainian military officials said Sunday. The soldiers were there to mark Artillery Day, one of a series of days marked in Ukraine to honor branches of the military. It was not possible to independently confirm the number of casualties or the nature of the strike. Viktor Mykyta, the head of the military administration in Zakarpattia, a western region from which many members of the brigade came, confirmed the strike and deaths, and called for three days of mourning. “I recommend visiting the churches and praying for our defenders,” he said on the Telegram messaging app.

Persons: ”, Viktor Mykyta, “ Organizations: Ukrainian, 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, Artillery, Facebook Locations: Ukraine, Zarichne, Zaporizhzhia, Russia, ”, Zakarpattia

☆ Somewhat Guiltily, Ukrainians Miss Matthew Perry
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-03 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It was the middle of the night in Ukraine, and Natalia Sosnytska couldn’t sleep. So she opened the Instagram app on her phone — and saw that the actor Matthew Perry had died. “We need to remember those dying here in Ukraine daily, but maybe also those who inspire us,” she said, trying to come to terms with her layered emotions. Mr. Perry’s death last Saturday resonated with the many Ukrainians who had watched “Friends,” which was shown on broadcast television in the country and was popular especially with younger people. Yet Ukrainians found space in their hearts for sadness about the death of an actor who had touched their lives.

Persons: Natalia Sosnytska, Matthew Perry, ”, Perry’s Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Kherson, Volnovakha

☆ As Ukraine War Grinds On, Widows Try to See Life After Loss
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-25 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Each new member of the group arrives with a very personal sense of loss. Yulia Fatyeeva, 43, was a decade older than her husband, Oleksandr Khokhlov, when they met. “He stood up and told me, ‘I’m alive, don’t cry, I’m good.’”Image Yulia Fatyeeva with her late husband, Oleksandr Khokhlov and their daughter, Alisa. Each support group meets weekly for eight weeks and then once a month, to preserve a connection with others who have endured the same kind of loss. “It is important not to leave the women behind, but always be here for them,” Yaryna Herashchenko, the co-founder, said.

Persons: Yulia Fatyeeva, Oleksandr Khokhlov, Khokhlov, ”, “, ‘ I’m, Alisa, Yulia Fatyeeva Widows, Love, ” Yaryna Herashchenko Organizations: “

☆ For These Ukrainian Soldiers, the Fight Is Personal
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The objective for one private taking part in Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia is not complicated: it is a house near the beach, overflowing with flowers, the play room strewn with toys. Ukrainian military strategists may be intent on driving a wedge through Russian forces and cutting supply lines, but Private Yevheniy just wants to see his home again, in the Azov Sea port city of Berdyansk. “I miss the sea most of all,” he said, as his unit held ground in the frontline village of Tavriyske. As a rule, soldiers go wherever they are sent, but the Ukrainian Army makes an exception: those who were driven from their hometowns after Russia invaded last year can request to take part in the fight to liberate them.

Persons: Yevheniy, “, ” Organizations: Ukrainian Army Locations: Russia, Ukrainian, Azov, Berdyansk, Tavriyske

☆ ‘I Cannot Believe We Made It’: In the Flood, a Rescue Behind the Front
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Andrew E. Kramer | Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For months, she had been kept away by the dangers of Russia’s war in Ukraine, stranded on a river island, after the front line shifted while she was on vacation. To feed her children, she fished in the Dnipro River and scavenged for canned goods in abandoned summer homes. Only by the chance of a massive flood washing over the island — and washing away some Russian positions — was Kateryna Krupych able to escape Russian-occupied Ukraine in the south. The destruction of a dam along the Dnipro river and the flood that followed brought devastation to tens of thousands of people in southern Ukraine. To Ms Krupych and dozens of others, it brought freedom, a chance to reunite with their loved ones.

Persons: —, Kateryna, Ms Krupych Locations: Ukraine, Dnipro

☆ Zelensky Visits Ukraine’s Flood Zone, Where Residents See ‘Horror’ Float By
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Marc Santora | Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Even as rescue workers took boats through flooded streets to get people to safety, Russian forces assailed the city on Thursday afternoon. Shelling struck near an evacuation point at the heart of Kherson, close to where Mr. Zelensky had stood hours earlier, and sent hundreds of people ducking for cover in floodwaters that have loosed land mines and mixed with toxic material. “There was nowhere to hide,” said Serhiy Ludensky, a volunteer from an animal care center, who was on a boat near a flooded square when the shelling struck. The people on the boat managed to break down the door of a flooded dormitory to take shelter there until the explosions stopped. The monthslong bombardment of Kherson, which Russian soldiers once occupied in southern Ukraine, has not let up since an explosion on Tuesday at the Kakhovka dam, up the Dnipro River.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky, ”, Serhiy Ludensky Locations: Ukraine, Kherson, Dnipro

☆ Kherson is hit by Russian shelling hours after a Zelensky visit.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Marc Santora | Maria Varenikova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Russian forces shelled the flood-stricken city of Kherson on Thursday, striking close to an evacuation point, only hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the city to witness the aftermath of the destruction of a dam on the Dnipro River earlier this week. Hundreds of people who were gathered near an evacuation point at Ship Square, in the heart of the city, scrambled for cover when explosions rang out, witnesses said, describing multiple strikes in and around the square. Volunteers, medics, emergency workers and rescue teams involved in coordinating aid efforts have been meeting on higher ground near the square, which is itself flooded but is being used as an evacuation point because it is a known landmark. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said that eight people were injured in the shelling near Ship Square, including two employees of the State Emergency Service and a police officer. “Information about the dead has not yet been received,” it added.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky Organizations: . Volunteers, Ministry, State Emergency Service Locations: Kherson, Dnipro

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