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A Ukrainian reporter who revealed that a state news agency tried to bar interviews with opposition politicians said he received a draft notification the next day. Ukraine’s domestic spy agency spied on staff members of an investigative news outlet through peepholes in their hotel rooms. Journalists and groups monitoring press freedoms are raising alarms over what they say are increasing restrictions and pressures on the media in Ukraine under the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky that go well beyond the country’s wartime needs. “It’s really disturbing,” said Oksana Romanyuk, director of the Institute of Mass Information, a nonprofit that monitors media freedoms. That is particularly true, she said, in a war where Ukraine is “fighting for democracy against the values of dictatorship embodied by Russia.”
Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, , , Oksana Romanyuk Organizations: of Mass Locations: Ukrainian, peepholes, Ukraine, Russia
Ukraine has in recent weeks faced the full force of Russia’s multifaceted attacks, with Moscow sending waves of troops to break through Ukrainian lines in the east and barrages of missiles to knock out the country’s energy system. So it was with a sigh of relief that the embattled nation welcomed a series of pledges of military and financial aid made by Western allies this week, including a 10-year security agreement with the United States and a $50 billion loan issued by Washington and the European Union. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that the promises, announced during a flurry of diplomatic meetings at the Group of 7 summit in Italy on Thursday, meant that his country would receive more air defense systems to protect its battered cities. “Patriots is practically a Ukrainian word now,” he said, referring to the advanced — and scarce — American-made missile batteries that Ukraine has long asked for. Washington agreed last week to send an additional battery, adding to the at least three systems that Ukraine already has.
Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, Organizations: European Union, Group, “ Patriots, Washington Locations: Ukraine, Moscow, United States, Washington, Italy,
Towering over Kyiv for six decades, Hotel Ukraine has witnessed some pivotal moments in Ukraine’s recent history. Today, blue and yellow flags cover lawns near the hotel, serving as a reminder of the many lives lost in the war between Ukraine and Russia. Now, Hotel Ukraine is up for auction as part of an effort to sell off some large state assets to help fund the military and bolster an economy battered by a grueling war that has drained the country’s coffers. The starting price for Hotel Ukraine is $25 million. Beginning this summer, the government will auction some 20 state-owned companies, including Hotel Ukraine, a vast shopping mall in Kyiv, and several mining and chemical companies.
Organizations: Soviet Union, Ukrainian, Hotel Ukraine, Hotel Locations: Kyiv, Ukraine, Soviet, Russia, Hotel Ukraine
On a recent afternoon in Kyiv, a professor of literature and a stand-up comedian ​got together to talk about Russian colonialism, a subject that has become ​a preoccupation among Ukrainian activists, cultural figures and bookstore owners. ​The moderator of the discussion, which was recorded for a new podcast for Ukraine’s national public broadcaster, was Mariam Naiem, a graphic designer and former philosophy student who has become an unlikely expert on the topic. “This war is just the continuation of centuries of Russian colonization,” said Ms. Naiem, 32, ​referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “It’s the same playbook.”Russia’s long cultural and political domination of Ukraine, first through its empire and then the Soviet Union, had left an indelible mark, the podcast guests agreed, as they lamented being more fluent in Russian poems and films than in their own nation’s cultural treasures.
Persons: , Mariam Naiem, , Naiem, Locations: Kyiv, Ukraine, Soviet Union
At first sight, it looked like a typical party in a nightclub. But the lineup that night, in a concert hall that typically hosts pop artists and rappers, was unexpected: four Ukrainian folk singers, filling the room with their high-pitched voices and polyphonic choruses, accompanied by a D.J. These days, Ukrainian folk music “is becoming something cool,” said Stepan Andrushchenko, one of the singers from Shchuka Ryba, the band onstage that night. “A very cool thing.”More than two years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, folk music is enjoying a surge of popularity in the war-torn nation. Faced with Moscow’s efforts to erase Ukrainian culture, people have embraced traditional songs as a way to reconnect with their past and affirm their identity.
Persons: , Stepan Andrushchenko, Shchuka Ryba Locations: Kyiv, V’YAVA, Ukrainian, Ukraine
Skyscrapers are without electricity up to 12 hours a day. Neighborhoods are filled with the roar of gas generators installed by cafes and restaurants. In recent months, Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s power plants and substations have left the country’s energy infrastructure severely hobbled. To make matters worse, two nuclear power plant units are scheduled for repairs this week, and summer temperatures are expected to prompt people to turn on their air-conditioners. As a result, the Ukrainian authorities have ordered nationwide rolling blackouts for this week, a more aggressive measure than the regional and irregular power cuts that parts of the country had been experiencing earlier this spring.
Organizations: Russian Locations: Ukraine
Russian drones and missiles streaked into Ukrainian skies early Saturday morning, Ukrainian officials said, in a large-scale air assault that appeared to be targeting western Ukraine, including regions near borders with NATO allies. The Ukrainian Air Force said some missiles were heading toward the western Zakarpattia and Lviv regions, which border Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, all members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Shortly after midnight on Saturday, the Ukrainian Air Force reported launches of attack drones followed by waves of missiles. Debris from a downed Russian drone started a fire at an infrastructure facility in the western region of Vinnytsia, and several explosions were heard in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, local officials said. No casualties were immediately reported.
Organizations: NATO, Ukrainian Air Force, Atlantic Treaty Organization, Polish Army Locations: Ukraine, Zakarpattia, Lviv, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Russian, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia
Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s commander in chief, said on Thursday that Moscow was redeploying troops toward Vovchansk and Lyptsi, two villages near the city of Kharkiv that Russian forces have been trying to capture for more than two weeks. Other officials have also said that Russia has massed troops further north, across from the Ukrainian region of Sumy, in preparation for a possible ground offensive in that area. “These forces are not enough to launch a full-scale offensive and break through our defenses,” General Syrsky wrote on Facebook on Thursday. Still, he said, a reorganization of Ukrainian defenses in the area was underway to be prepared to repel assaults. Commanders have been forced to move troops to the north to shore up defenses while waiting for Western weapons in numbers big enough to have an impact.
Persons: Oleksandr Syrsky, Syrsky Organizations: Russian, Facebook Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Moscow, Vovchansk, Kharkiv, Ukrainian, Sumy
Calls are mounting among Western nations to allow attacks on Russian territory using weapons that they have sent the Ukrainian military, a measure that Ukraine says will enable it to better prevent Russian attacks. On Monday, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, made up of lawmakers from countries belonging to the military alliance, adopted a declaration urging NATO members to lift a ban on firing Western weapons into Russia. The calls to allow Ukraine to expand its use of the Western weapons are mostly directed at the United States, the largest supplier of arms to the Ukrainian government. Ukraine has complained in recent months that the ban allows Russian forces to launch attacks from inside Russian territory without risk and hampers its ability to repel them. That disadvantage became clear this month when Russia started a new offensive in northeastern Ukraine after amassing troops and equipment just across the border.
Persons: NATO’s, Jens Stoltenberg, Biden Organizations: Ukrainian, NATO Parliamentary Assembly, NATO, Washington, U.S Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, United States
The Ukrainian army has increasingly used U.S.-supplied long-range missiles to target Russian airfields and warships deep inside Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, but it has been barred by Washington from extending its attacks into Russia proper, limiting its ability to repel enemy assaults. In the past week, Kyiv’s forces launched three attacks using Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS. Ukraine hopes that the strikes, by hurting Moscow’s ability to conduct military operations, will ultimately help relieve troops struggling to contain Russian advances on the ground. But the United States and other Western allies have permitted only the firing of Western weapons into Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine, not into Russia itself, for fear of escalating the war. Ukrainian officials have complained that the policy allows Moscow to launch attacks from inside Russia without risk and handcuffs Ukraine’s ability to repel them.
Persons: , Volodymyr Zelensky Organizations: Army Tactical Missile Systems, The New York Times Locations: U.S, Washington, Russia, Ukraine’s, Ukraine, United States, Moscow
Ukraine has begun releasing prisoners to serve in its army, part of a wider effort to rebuild a military that has been depleted by more than two years of war and is strained by relentless Russian assaults. It is unclear how many prisoners in total have been released since the law came into force a week ago. The Ukrainian authorities said this week that more than 3,000 prisoners had already applied. Russia’s program is open to prisoners convicted of violent crimes, while the Ukrainian law does not extend to people convicted of premeditated murder, rape or other serious offenses. The regional court said that most of the men released this week had been convicted of theft.
Persons: Denys Maliuska Organizations: BBC Locations: Ukraine, Russia
Russian troops in recent weeks have been taking ground from Ukraine all across the front line. And in a surprise offensive, Moscow has made its biggest territorial gains since late 2022. Analysts say Russia is likely to increase its gains in coming months while Ukraine waits for American military aid to reach the battlefield. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed last week that its troops had seized Robotyne, a tiny village in the Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine. The village had been retaken by Ukrainian soldiers in August, a much-celebrated, if rare, success in Kyiv’s disappointing summer counteroffensive.
Persons: Here’s, Robotyne Organizations: Russia’s Defense Ministry Locations: Ukraine, Moscow, Russia, Robotyne, Zaporizhzhia
Russian forces on Tuesday inched closer to the central part of Vovchansk, a town in Ukraine’s northeast that they have been attacking for the past 10 days as part of a new offensive in the region. Roman Semenukha, the deputy head of the military administration in the northeastern Kharkiv region, said on television on Monday that Ukrainian forces had lost about 40 percent of the town, with Russian troops pushing from the north. Open-source maps of the battlefield compiled by independent groups also show that Russia now controls the northern part of the town, which had a prewar population of 17,000. Vovchansk, which lies just five miles from the Russian border, has been a prime target of Moscow’s new offensive. Both U.S. officials and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia have said the offensive is part of an effort to establish a buffer zone.
Persons: Roman Semenukha, Vladimir V, Putin Organizations: U.S Locations: Vovchansk, Ukraine’s, Roman, Kharkiv, Russia, Russian
As Ukraine struggles to hold back Russian advances, the country’s officials say they are once again facing the formidable challenge of keeping electricity flowing as Moscow’s forces increasingly strike power plants. To conserve energy, the government has ordered nationwide rolling blackouts for Monday night, broadening the smaller regional ones that have become the norm in recent weeks. “This is another frontline in the war,” said Maxim Timchenko, the head of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private electricity company, on social media last week. He said the company’s workers were engaged in a “race against time” to restore power to consumers. The nationwide blackout, scheduled from 6 p.m. to midnight, will affect the entire country for the first time this year, but it is unclear if it will continue past Monday.
Persons: , Maxim Timchenko Locations: Ukraine
Many Ukrainians were up in the early hours of Sunday morning, for once not to seek shelter from incoming Russian missiles, but to celebrate the Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk becoming the world’s undisputed heavyweight champion. Mr. Usyk’s victory over the British boxer Tyson Fury was a rare piece of good news for an embattled nation that is struggling to contain Russian advances, particularly in the northeast, where Moscow has opened a new front. President Volodymyr Zelensky lauded the victory as a symbol of Ukraine’s resilience. “Ukrainians hit hard!” Mr. Zelensky wrote in a Telegram post around 3 a.m. that included a photograph of Mr. Usyk delivering a punch to Mr. Fury. Russian troops recently advanced farther into Robotyne, a village in the south that was one of the rare successes of Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive last summer.
Persons: Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky, Usyk, Fury, Ukraine’s Locations: British, Moscow, Robotyne
Russia and Ukraine targeted each other’s territory on Sunday with drone attacks and airstrikes that hit urban centers and energy facilities, as both sides look for ways to inflict damage beyond the battlefield. The Russian military said it had shot down nearly 60 Ukrainian drones over the Krasnodar region of southwest Russia, which Ukraine has increasingly targeted in recent weeks because it is home to energy and military facilities supporting combat operations. Local Russian officials said an oil refinery had been struck in the attack. Russian officials did not comment on the reported strike on the airfield. Ukrainian officials said Russia struck northeast Ukraine, including the city of Kharkiv, killing at least 10 civilians and wounding more than 20 people.
Organizations: Local, Kharkiv Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Krasnodar, Russian, Kharkiv, Ukraine’s
The Ukrainian Army said on Saturday that Russian troops had tried to break through its defenses near the village of Lyptsi, which lies directly north of Kharkiv. It said the attacks had been repelled, but maps of the battlefield compiled by independent groups analyzing publicly available video of the fighting showed that Russian troops had almost reached the outskirts of the village. Ukraine’s Khartia Brigade, which is defending Lyptsi, posted a video on Telegram on Friday afternoon that it said showed Russian soldiers advancing on the village on foot, and attacking in small groups between tree lines. The brigade said it had targeted the Russians with rockets, forcing them to withdraw. Russian troops opened a new front in Ukraine’s northeast a week ago, surging across the border and quickly capturing about 10 settlements in what Ukrainian officials and military analysts described as an attempt to stretch Ukraine’s already outnumbered forces.
Persons: Lyptsi Organizations: Ukrainian Army, Ukraine’s Khartia Brigade Locations: Ukraine, Kharkiv, Ukraine’s, Lyptsi
Russian troops punched across Ukraine’s northern border with such speed and force last week that Ukraine’s meager fortifications offered almost no obstacle. As she fled the village where she had spent her whole life, she said, not a single Ukrainian soldier was in sight. The stunning incursion into the Kharkiv Region lays bare the challenges facing Ukraine’s weary and thinly stretched forces as Russia ramps up its summer offensive. The Russian troops pouring over the border enjoyed a huge advantage in artillery shells and employed air power, including fighter jets and heavy glide bombs, to disastrous effect, unhindered by depleted Ukrainian air defenses. Once over the border, the Russian soldiers easily pushed past fortifications — like trenches, land mines and tank barriers — some of which, Ukrainian troops said, were insufficient or sloppily constructed.
Persons: , Tetiana Novikova Locations: Vovchansk, Ukrainian, Kharkiv Region, Russia
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday signed into law a bill allowing some Ukrainian convicts to serve in the country’s military in exchange for the possibility of parole at the end of their service, a move that highlight’s Kyiv’s desperate attempts to replenish its forces after more than two years of war. Parliament passed the bill last week, and political analysts were unsure whether Mr. Zelensky would enact it given the sensitivity of the matter. The measure echoes a practice that Russia has widely used to bolster its forces and that Ukraine ridiculed at the beginning of the war. Ukrainian officials have said the measure could allow up to 20,000 prisoners to be mobilized. Mr. Zelensky also enacted a law on Friday that increases fines for evading the draft.
Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, highlight’s, Zelensky Organizations: Ukrainian, dodgers Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Ukrainian
After surging across the border last week, Russia’s army appears to be advancing more slowly in northeastern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials and military analysts said on Wednesday, with the two sides engaged in fierce combat around villages about five miles from the border. In a sign of the concern that Russia’s northeastern offensive is causing in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine canceled his participation in all international events for the coming days, including a visit on Friday to Spain where he was expected to sign a security agreement. Civilians continued to flee areas of northeastern Ukraine under heavy shelling by Russian forces, the Ukrainian officials said, warning that their troops had to contain relentless assaults and that the situation on the ground could change fast. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, told Ukrainian television on Tuesday that conditions in the area under attack were moving “toward stabilization,” with additional Ukrainian units being rushed in to repel Russian advances. But he added that “the situation is quite tense and is changing very quickly.”
Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, Kyrylo Budanov, Locations: Ukraine, Kyiv, Spain, Russian
Facing an Endless Barrage, Ukraine’s Air Defenses Are WitheringThis is what a year of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine looks like. Ukrainian air defenses used to intercept most missiles, but in recent months, more and more have made it through. Ukraine has made increasingly desperate pleas for more air defenses from its Western allies. But it could be months before enough weapons arrive to significantly bolster Ukrainian air defenses. Ukrainian air defenses downed the first seven — but had no choice but to let the next four pass, he said.
Persons: Jan, Volodymyr Zelensky, , , Tom Karako, Maj, Ilya Yevlash, Konrad Muzyka, Odesa, Yevlash, Justin Bronk, Mr, Bronk, Barber Organizations: Russian, New York Times, Ukrainian Air Force, Patriot, United, Kremlin, PBS, Missile Defense, Center for Strategic, International Studies, Ukrainian Air, Patriots, Rochan Consulting, Kyiv Kharkiv Dnipro Odesa, Kyiv Kharkiv Dnipro Odesa Kyiv, Kyiv Kharkiv Dnipro Kyiv, Royal United Services Institute Locations: Russian, Ukraine, Russia, United States, Kyiv, Ukrainian, Washington, Poland, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Texas, London
Radiy Khabirov, the head of Russia’s Bashkiria region, near Kazakhstan, said a drone hit the Neftekhim Salavat oil refinery, one of the country’s largest, around midday on Thursday, sending plumes of smoke into the sky. The facility is more than 700 miles from the Ukrainian border, in a sign that Ukraine is increasingly capable of striking further into Russia. An official from Ukraine’s special services, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, said Ukraine was behind the assault. The official said Ukraine was also responsible for two other drone strikes overnight that hit oil depots in Russia’s Krasnodar region, southeast of Ukraine. Military analysts say they are an attempt by Ukraine to disrupt the Russian military’s logistical routes and combat operations by targeting the facilities that supply fuel for its tanks, ships and planes.
Persons: Radiy Khabirov Organizations: Military Locations: Russia, Kyiv, Bashkiria, Kazakhstan, Ukrainian, Ukraine, Russia’s Krasnodar
A large Russian missile and drone assault caused serious damage to several power plants across Ukraine early Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said. Ukraine’s largest private electricity company, DTEK, said in a statement that three thermal power plants had been hit, further straining Ukraine’s electricity generation capacity, which was already reeling from previous assaults. Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s national electricity company, said that it might have to cut power to some domestic and industrial customers on Wednesday evening as a result. “You have to be prepared for this,” Volodymyr Kudritskyi, the head of Ukrenergo, told the Ukrainian news media. The attacks have hit Ukraine at a particularly difficult moment.
Persons: Volodymyr Kudritskyi Locations: Russian, Ukraine
Ukraine’s Parliament passed a bill on Wednesday that will allow some convicts to serve in the military in exchange for the possibility of parole at the end of their service, a move aimed at replenishing the army’s depleted ranks after more than two years of war. The bill must still be signed into law by President Volodymyr Zelensky. It was not immediately clear if he would do so, given the sensitivity of the matter. The policy echoes a practice used by Russia, which has committed tens of thousands of convicts to the war, allowing it to gain the upper hand in bloody assaults by sheer force of numbers. Olena Shulyak, the leader of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, said that the decision to mobilize and parole a prisoner would be made by a court and would require the prisoner’s willingness to join the army.
Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, Olena Shulyak, Volodymyr Zelensky’s Organizations: People Locations: Russia
Ukraine’s security services said on Tuesday that they had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top military and political figures. Two Ukrainian colonels accused of participating in the plot have been arrested on suspicion of treason. According to the Ukrainian agency, the agents working at Russia’s direction were tasked with identifying people close to Mr. Zelensky’s security detail who could take him hostage and later kill him. It is not the first time that Ukraine has reported a potential assassination attempt aimed at its top leaders. Mr. Zelensky himself said in an interview with an Italian television channel earlier this year that his security services had told him of more than 10 such attempts.
Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, , Vasyl Malyuk, Kyrylo Budanov, Zelensky Organizations: Russia’s Federal Security Service Locations: Ukrainian, Ukraine, Italian
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