Ukraine and Russia exchange nearly 500 prisoners of war
KYIV — Ukraine and Russia exchanged nearly 500 prisoners of war Wednesday — including Ukrainian service members taken prisoner during fighting at the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol and Snake Island in the Black Sea — a sign that talks between Kyiv and Moscow continue, even as the two sides appear frozen in peace negotiations.
It was the largest trade since Russian forces invaded the country nearly two years ago, Ukraine’s coordinating headquarters for POW issues said in a post on Telegram. Officials from the United Arab Emirates helped mediate the process, Russian and Ukrainian officials said.
Ukrainian officials said that 230 of their service members returned home, while Russians said 248 of theirs had been released. Neither set of figures could be independently verified.
Read the full story here.
KYIV — Ukraine and Russia exchanged nearly 500 prisoners of war Wednesday — including Ukrainian service members taken prisoner during fighting at the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol and Snake Island in the Black Sea — a sign that talks between Kyiv and Moscow continue, even as the two sides appear frozen in peace negotiations.
It was the largest trade since Russian forces invaded the country nearly two years ago, Ukraine’s coordinating headquarters for POW issues said in a post on Telegram. Officials from the United Arab Emirates helped mediate the process, Russian and Ukrainian officials said.
Ukrainian officials said that 230 of their service members returned home, while Russians said 248 of theirs had been released. Neither set of figures could be independently verified.
Read the full story here.
Ukraine Marines recount deadly mission to free towns east of Dnieper River
KHERSON, Ukraine — On the morning of his first crossing of the Dnieper River — where his unit was being sent in a desperate effort to claw back occupied land from Russia — the 21-year-old Ukrainian marine woke up “ready to die.”
With their counteroffensive stalled, Ukraine’s military and political leaders were eager to show their Western backers some progress — any progress. But the 21-year-old marine, Dmytro recounted fording a river of death for little reward, aside from some political messaging.
Dmytro described being “tossed like a piece of meat to the wolves” during the crossing, which takes 30 minutes to an hour. His account was corroborated by six others involved in the operation to lodge a toehold on the river’s Russian-occupied east bank.
“We bear many losses,” said another marine, 22. “We simply lose people, but there is no result.”
Read the full story here.
KHERSON, Ukraine — On the morning of his first crossing of the Dnieper River — where his unit was being sent in a desperate effort to claw back occupied land from Russia — the 21-year-old Ukrainian marine woke up “ready to die.”
With their counteroffensive stalled, Ukraine’s military and political leaders were eager to show their Western backers some progress — any progress. But the 21-year-old marine, Dmytro recounted fording a river of death for little reward, aside from some political messaging.
Dmytro described being “tossed like a piece of meat to the wolves” during the crossing, which takes 30 minutes to an hour. His account was corroborated by six others involved in the operation to lodge a toehold on the river’s Russian-occupied east bank.
“We bear many losses,” said another marine, 22. “We simply lose people, but there is no result.”
Read the full story here.
Russia fires missiles supplied by North Korea into Ukraine, says U.S. intelligence
Russia has begun firing ballistic missiles into Ukraine that were provided by North Korea, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive U.S. intelligence.
Russia’s deployment of North Korean ballistic missiles, which has not been previously reported, indicates North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s growing support for Moscow’s war effort.
It also shows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ability to lean on pariah countries to make up for deficiencies in his own arsenal as the war in Ukraine approaches its third calendar year.
“Russia has become increasingly isolated on the world stage and been forced to look to like-minded states for military equipment,” said a U.S. official, who partially attributed Russia’s limited options to sanctions imposed by Washington.
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Russia has begun firing ballistic missiles into Ukraine that were provided by North Korea, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive U.S. intelligence.
Russia’s deployment of North Korean ballistic missiles, which has not been previously reported, indicates North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s growing support for Moscow’s war effort.
It also shows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ability to lean on pariah countries to make up for deficiencies in his own arsenal as the war in Ukraine approaches its third calendar year.
“Russia has become increasingly isolated on the world stage and been forced to look to like-minded states for military equipment,” said a U.S. official, who partially attributed Russia’s limited options to sanctions imposed by Washington.
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Russian strike kills 11, including children, Ukraine says
KYIV — At least 11 people were killed, including five children, after a Russian missile struck a residential area in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian officials said Saturday. Another eight people were injured, and emergency workers continued to dig through the rubble late Saturday, searching for survivors.
The early evening strike, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said was fired from an S-300 missile system, is the latest amid an escalation in Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine in the past 10 days. Other major attacks in recent days struck Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, and other Ukrainian cities, killing and wounding dozens of civilians.
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KYIV — At least 11 people were killed, including five children, after a Russian missile struck a residential area in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian officials said Saturday. Another eight people were injured, and emergency workers continued to dig through the rubble late Saturday, searching for survivors.
The early evening strike, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said was fired from an S-300 missile system, is the latest amid an escalation in Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine in the past 10 days. Other major attacks in recent days struck Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, and other Ukrainian cities, killing and wounding dozens of civilians.
Read the full story here.
She’s 16. The war in Ukraine wrecked her city — and her childhood.
IZYUM, Ukraine — Newly 16, she likes to walk alone, hands shoved in pockets, music loud in her ears, for mile after mile.
If Kate Kobets walks far enough, she can escape into her own world. It is a place where her childhood hasn’t been destroyed — her home loud with war, her soldier stepfather locked away as a Russian prisoner of war, she and her mom confined to a bomb shelter for much of the year after she turned 14.
She is part of a generation of Ukrainian teenagers living through a conflict entering its third year with no end in sight. Raised during a pandemic — then through gunfire and bloodshed — Kate, like many of her peers, is unsure what it means for her future. She knows she is luckier than some of her friends — who have lost their homes or even their lives. Still, it is difficult to make sense of it all.
Read the full story here.
IZYUM, Ukraine — Newly 16, she likes to walk alone, hands shoved in pockets, music loud in her ears, for mile after mile.
If Kate Kobets walks far enough, she can escape into her own world. It is a place where her childhood hasn’t been destroyed — her home loud with war, her soldier stepfather locked away as a Russian prisoner of war, she and her mom confined to a bomb shelter for much of the year after she turned 14.
She is part of a generation of Ukrainian teenagers living through a conflict entering its third year with no end in sight. Raised during a pandemic — then through gunfire and bloodshed — Kate, like many of her peers, is unsure what it means for her future. She knows she is luckier than some of her friends — who have lost their homes or even their lives. Still, it is difficult to make sense of it all.
Read the full story here.
Opinion | Yaroslav Trofimov: How the best chance to win the Ukraine war was lost
By November 2022, the Ukrainian offensive had run out of steam. There was no massive resupply of artillery ammunition, and Kyiv’s pleas for Western tanks and fighting vehicles kept getting turned down. Meanwhile, Russia’s new commander for the war, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, had hundreds of thousands of fresh troops at his disposal. Ukraine’s advantage in manpower was over. Surovikin ordered these men to spend the winter digging, creating nearly impregnable fortifications along the entire front line.
All the hardware that Ukraine was begging for in 2022 — Leopard and Abrams tanks, Bradleys and Strykers, and Patriot batteries — was eventually provided the following year. “A mountain of steel,” is how U.S. officials termed it.
But, by then, it was a different war. The Ukrainian offensives of 2023 gained little ground against an entrenched, prepared and more numerous enemy.
Read the full op-ed here.
By November 2022, the Ukrainian offensive had run out of steam. There was no massive resupply of artillery ammunition, and Kyiv’s pleas for Western tanks and fighting vehicles kept getting turned down. Meanwhile, Russia’s new commander for the war, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, had hundreds of thousands of fresh troops at his disposal. Ukraine’s advantage in manpower was over. Surovikin ordered these men to spend the winter digging, creating nearly impregnable fortifications along the entire front line.
All the hardware that Ukraine was begging for in 2022 — Leopard and Abrams tanks, Bradleys and Strykers, and Patriot batteries — was eventually provided the following year. “A mountain of steel,” is how U.S. officials termed it.
But, by then, it was a different war. The Ukrainian offensives of 2023 gained little ground against an entrenched, prepared and more numerous enemy.
Read the full op-ed here.
A Ukrainian lioness concussed in a missile attack needs a new home
CHUBYNSKE, Ukraine — Yuna the lioness lay in the corner of her outdoor enclosure, completely still.
Fragments of a Russian missile, shot out of the sky that morning on its way to Kyiv, sat nearby.
As the veterinarian tried to coax her toward the fence, Yuna’s eyes shifted only horizontally. She didn’t let out her usual growl; she didn’t want food. When she tried to stand up, she collapsed. “She just couldn’t move,” said the vet, Inna Vasylkivska, describing how on Jan. 2 she diagnosed the 2-year-old lioness with a severe concussion.
Ramped-up Russian airstrikes have killed dozens of people and wounded many more in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities over the past two weeks. The increased assaults, paired with doubts about future U.S. support, have stoked anxiety across the country that this will be an especially violent winter. And humans aren’t the only ones in danger.
Read the full story here.
CHUBYNSKE, Ukraine — Yuna the lioness lay in the corner of her outdoor enclosure, completely still.
Fragments of a Russian missile, shot out of the sky that morning on its way to Kyiv, sat nearby.
As the veterinarian tried to coax her toward the fence, Yuna’s eyes shifted only horizontally. She didn’t let out her usual growl; she didn’t want food. When she tried to stand up, she collapsed. “She just couldn’t move,” said the vet, Inna Vasylkivska, describing how on Jan. 2 she diagnosed the 2-year-old lioness with a severe concussion.
Ramped-up Russian airstrikes have killed dozens of people and wounded many more in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities over the past two weeks. The increased assaults, paired with doubts about future U.S. support, have stoked anxiety across the country that this will be an especially violent winter. And humans aren’t the only ones in danger.
Read the full story here.
British prime minister, in Kyiv, showcases security pact with Ukraine
KYIV — On a visit to Kyiv, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced Friday that the United Kingdom would provide Ukraine with more than $3 billion in additional military aid and he signed documents establishing bilateral security guarantees between London and Kyiv.
The bilateral agreement, called the U.K.-Ukraine Agreement on Security Cooperation, “commits the U.K. to consult with Ukraine in the event it is ever attacked by Russia again, and to provide ‘swift and sustained’ assistance for their defence,” according to a British government statement.
The agreement is intended “to be the first step in developing an unshakeable hundred-year partnership between Ukraine and the United Kingdom,” the statement said. London would also “provide intelligence sharing, cyber security, medical and military training, and defense industrial cooperation.”
Read the full story here.
KYIV — On a visit to Kyiv, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced Friday that the United Kingdom would provide Ukraine with more than $3 billion in additional military aid and he signed documents establishing bilateral security guarantees between London and Kyiv.
The bilateral agreement, called the U.K.-Ukraine Agreement on Security Cooperation, “commits the U.K. to consult with Ukraine in the event it is ever attacked by Russia again, and to provide ‘swift and sustained’ assistance for their defence,” according to a British government statement.
The agreement is intended “to be the first step in developing an unshakeable hundred-year partnership between Ukraine and the United Kingdom,” the statement said. London would also “provide intelligence sharing, cyber security, medical and military training, and defense industrial cooperation.”
Read the full story here.
Belgorod, in western Russia, hit hard as Ukraine retaliates for airstrikes
A mother and her 6-year-old child, cut down while ice-skating on the city’s central square.
A promising engineering student who had planned to marry his girlfriend this year, hit while waiting for the bus.
A young couple and their baby, all killed as the parents pushed their child in a stroller along a main street.
Such civilian deaths are a constant occurrence in Ukraine, which has come under sustained Russian bombardment. But these victims were among the 25 people killed in the Russian city of Belgorod, about 20 miles from the border with Ukraine, in a rocket and missile attack on the day before New Year’s Eve.
Read the full story here.
A mother and her 6-year-old child, cut down while ice-skating on the city’s central square.
A promising engineering student who had planned to marry his girlfriend this year, hit while waiting for the bus.
A young couple and their baby, all killed as the parents pushed their child in a stroller along a main street.
Such civilian deaths are a constant occurrence in Ukraine, which has come under sustained Russian bombardment. But these victims were among the 25 people killed in the Russian city of Belgorod, about 20 miles from the border with Ukraine, in a rocket and missile attack on the day before New Year’s Eve.
Read the full story here.
Two Russian fathers backed army conscription. Only one son came home.
After ordering his troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a solemn promise that young men performing compulsory military duty would not be sent to fight.
But the experiences of two young men from opposite ends of western Russia reveal a military ravenous for men to plow into the war, which Putin now describes as an existential fight against the West. The two faced heavy pressure to sign contracts that would have allowed commanders to deploy them to Ukraine indefinitely. Neither did so.
Still, the young men’s fathers each felt their son had a manly duty to serve. One son returned home. The other came back severely beaten and died of his wounds soon after, leaving his father, Nikolai Lazhiev, with unanswered, heartbreaking questions.
Read the full story here.
After ordering his troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a solemn promise that young men performing compulsory military duty would not be sent to fight.
But the experiences of two young men from opposite ends of western Russia reveal a military ravenous for men to plow into the war, which Putin now describes as an existential fight against the West. The two faced heavy pressure to sign contracts that would have allowed commanders to deploy them to Ukraine indefinitely. Neither did so.
Still, the young men’s fathers each felt their son had a manly duty to serve. One son returned home. The other came back severely beaten and died of his wounds soon after, leaving his father, Nikolai Lazhiev, with unanswered, heartbreaking questions.
Read the full story here.
Russian air passengers face peril as planes show strain of sanctions
MOSCOW — Over the first eight days of December, civilian Russian airplanes experienced at least eight serious mechanical failures, terrifying many passengers as pilots were forced to make emergency landings in cities across the country.
The incidents did not kill anyone, but they illustrate the rising peril of air travel in Russia. Nearly two years of sanctions over the war in Ukraine have left airlines struggling to obtain vital spare parts and, as a result, shortcutting safety standards — in some cases with government approval.
Read the full story here.
MOSCOW — Over the first eight days of December, civilian Russian airplanes experienced at least eight serious mechanical failures, terrifying many passengers as pilots were forced to make emergency landings in cities across the country.
The incidents did not kill anyone, but they illustrate the rising peril of air travel in Russia. Nearly two years of sanctions over the war in Ukraine have left airlines struggling to obtain vital spare parts and, as a result, shortcutting safety standards — in some cases with government approval.
Read the full story here.
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Breaking protection pledge, Russian regions reinstate animal kill shelters
RIGA, Latvia — Nearly every day, volunteers in Buryatia, a Russian republic in east Siberia, carry terrified and malnourished dogs in their hands to the Ulan-Ude train station. For more than 3,000 canines held in the region’s shelters, the mass evacuation to cities thousands of miles away may be their last chance to avoid being killed.
In November, Buryatia became the first region to adopt laws reinstating a “kill-shelter” approach to controlling the population of stray dogs after President Vladimir Putin signed a law giving regional heads authority to deal with the issue independently.
Read the full story here.
RIGA, Latvia — Nearly every day, volunteers in Buryatia, a Russian republic in east Siberia, carry terrified and malnourished dogs in their hands to the Ulan-Ude train station. For more than 3,000 canines held in the region’s shelters, the mass evacuation to cities thousands of miles away may be their last chance to avoid being killed.
In November, Buryatia became the first region to adopt laws reinstating a “kill-shelter” approach to controlling the population of stray dogs after President Vladimir Putin signed a law giving regional heads authority to deal with the issue independently.
Read the full story here.
Shelling in eastern Ukraine kills 27, Russian-backed authorities say
At least 27 people were killed Sunday when shells slammed into a Russian-controlled region of eastern Ukraine, local officials and Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.
Authorities in the city of Donetsk blamed the strikes on Ukraine’s military, saying the shells landed in a busy shopping area in the Tekstilshchik quarter. Twenty-five people were injured in the attack, according to Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-installed head of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, or DPR.
In a post on Telegram, Pushilin said 155mm and 152mm artillery rounds were fired at Donetsk from two regions west of the city, near the front line. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv, and The Washington Post could not immediately verify the claims.
Read the full story here.
At least 27 people were killed Sunday when shells slammed into a Russian-controlled region of eastern Ukraine, local officials and Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.
Authorities in the city of Donetsk blamed the strikes on Ukraine’s military, saying the shells landed in a busy shopping area in the Tekstilshchik quarter. Twenty-five people were injured in the attack, according to Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-installed head of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, or DPR.
In a post on Telegram, Pushilin said 155mm and 152mm artillery rounds were fired at Donetsk from two regions west of the city, near the front line. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv, and The Washington Post could not immediately verify the claims.
Read the full story here.