The view from the camera skims over the water, low and predatory. Dodging left and right between rows of white splashes, it sidles up to the aft of the looming gray hull. A shape appears to scramble across the deck of the Russian corvette before the feed cuts off. The next naval drone behind it records a brilliant explosion and a rising grayscale fireball. By the time it reaches the corvette Ivanovets, the hull looks pretty mangled. There appear to be no more white splashes from the vessel to w

Russian airstrikes on the village of Piski Radkivski in Kharkiv Oblast on June 16 injured a 33-year-old pregnant woman, a 13-year-old boy, and a 59-year-old man, local authorities reported.

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo spoke about how Russia’s invasion has decreased food security in poor countries in his closing statement at Ukraine’s peace summit in Switzerland. “The consequences of the invasion go far beyond the confines of Europe. Indeed in many ways, Africa has been the greatest victim,” he said.

Russia’s two-pronged assault in Kharkiv Oblast that began on May 10 is exploiting Ukraine’s troop shortage, forcing it to make difficult decisions about where to commit reserves. Two weeks into the offensive, one group of Russian forces is already fighting in the streets of the town of Vovchansk about 70 kilometers away from the city of Kharkiv, while the other is trying to push toward the town of Lyptsi, just under two dozen kilometers away from the city. The Kremlin has options for what it c

As Ukraine’s defenders and allies display a constellation of weaknesses, Russian forces are taking advantage and pushing forward in Donetsk Oblast. The Russians have begun their assault of Chasiv Yar, while a complementary, flanking assault is slowly pushing up from occupied Avdiivka, in an attempt to cut the supply road from Kramatorsk to Kostiantynivka. Chasiv Yar is the foyer of Kostiantynivka, a larger town that has served as an important Ukrainian military staging ground. “Their intentio

In two years of total war, Moscow has tried every trick to keep the death march going. It held a draft, expanded state-sponsored mercenary companies, recruited convicted prisoners, integrated proxies from occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, and forcibly conscripted Ukrainians in occupied territories and Ukrainian POWs. Lately, Russia has seized on the simple, yet effective strategy of exploiting its people’s war-made hopelessness by providing military salaries that outbid any employer in tow

Russia’s war machine has shown remarkable stamina despite the hundreds of thousands of troops it is estimated to have lost in Ukraine. But under the hood, it may be less resilient than it looks. With its high oil export revenues, Russia has been able to replace its losses and give its soldiers enough equipment and ammunition to keep on pushing. To achieve and maintain this, the Kremlin has put the whole country on a military footing for the foreseeable future, Russia observers say.   “I have

Ukraine faces a challenging problem: how to stop a resurgent Moscow in its tracks long enough to rotate the troops, resupply, and fortify. Part of the answer is playing out right now in the skies over Russia. Over the past two weeks, at least dozens of Ukrainian drones reportedly struck at least nine Russian regions. The majority of the drones had very specific targets: oil refineries. Many have hit their targets as fires and explosions have been reported at fuel processing plants across Russi

Editor’s Note: This story is based on dozens of interviews with Ukrainian active servicemen, veterans, and experts with knowledge of Ukraine’s military medical system. Some of the soldiers and veterans in the story are identified by their first name or callsign only because they fear retribution as they continue fighting for their benefits or to be discharged following injuries. One soldier, entangled in a legal battle to be discharged, is identified under a pseudonym. The Kyiv Independent corro

Deputy Defense Minister Dmytro Klimenkov has been given one of the most sensitive jobs of his incoming team: reforming and managing Ukraine’s troubled military procurements. His overloaded daily schedule barely hints at the scope of the issue.   Former Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov and his entire team were fired after multiple corruption scandals came to light, mid-war. In 2023, journalists revealed that the ministry was buying food at highly inflated prices and ordering worthless jackets f

As Western sanctions designed to cripple Russian energy exports barely slow them down, the Kremlin continues to make enough money to keep its war against Ukraine going indefinitely, just by selling oil to China and India. After pivoting away from Europe, Moscow found enthusiastic buyers in Beijing and New Delhi. By exploiting loopholes, Western reluctance to crack down, and a shadow fleet of decrepit oil tankers, Russia was projected to make around $180 billion from oil exports in 2023, compare

The capture of Avdiivka is Russia’s first major achievement in nine months, but it doesn’t leave any side looking good. For Russia, it was a Pyrrhic victory that consumed an army’s worth of equipment and killed or mangled estimated tens of thousands of Russian men to capture a city with marginal strategic importance. Avdiivka is valuable mostly as a set piece for Vladimir Putin’s victory propaganda ahead of the upcoming presidential elections. This means that the four-month operation with the l

Russia’s invasion of 2022 may have shocked the world with the brutality of the fighting but it was only a preview for what was coming in 2023. To start with, 2022 had variety. It kicked off with a disastrous Russian blitz into Kyiv Oblast, stalled and picked apart by mobile Ukrainians. A successful capture and attempted colonization of parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts. Then, a frozen artillery duel in Donbas. By late summer, a Ukrainian feint drew a third of Russia’s available forces

Stanislav Haider was hired to fix the defense ministry’s institutional problems just as Ukraine entered the most difficult period of the war to date. The 37-year-old deputy minister looks youthful but for his graying strands of hair and he whimsically refers to the invading Russians as “the northern tribes.” He doesn’t look like a defense guy — in fact, he had never worked with the military in any way. He has made his career on making large organizations work in a smarter, more tech-integrated

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Finland is "now going to have problems" because it joined NATO, on the same morning that he claimed not to be interested in fighting any NATO members.