Author: Yuras Karmanau

BAKHMUT, Ukraine • Workers pulled scores of bodies from smashed buildings in an “endless caravan of death” inside the devastated city of Mariupol, authorities said Wednesday, while fears of a global food crisis escalated over Ukraine’s inability to export millions of tons of grain through its blockaded ports. At the same time, Ukrainian and Russian…

KYIV, Ukraine • Ukraine’s president says Russian troops intend to capture Zaporizhzhia, a large city in the country’s southeast, which would allow the Russian military to advance closer to the center of the country. Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that peace talks with Russia stood at “level zero,” and in the meantime “the most threatening situation”…

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine • Russian forces in a “frenzied push” have seized half of the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk that is key to Moscow’s efforts to quickly complete the capture of the industrial Donbas region, the mayor said Tuesday. “The city is essentially being destroyed ruthlessly block by block,” Oleksandr Striuk said. He said heavy…

LVIV, Ukraine • Ever since Russian forces took the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson in early March, residents sensed the occupiers had a special plan for their town. Now, amid a crescendo of warnings from Ukraine that Russia plans to stage a sham referendum to transform the territory into a pro-Moscow “people’s republic,” it appears…

KYIV, Ukraine • Vladimir Putin vowed Tuesday that Russia’s bloody offensive in Ukraine would continue until its goals are fulfilled and insisted the campaign was going as planned, despite a major withdrawal in the face of stiff Ukrainian opposition and significant losses. Russian troops, thwarted in their push toward Ukraine’s capital, are now focusing on…

KYIV, Ukraine • Russian troops handed control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant back to the Ukrainians and began leaving the heavily contaminated site more than a month after taking it over, authorities said Thursday, as fighting raged on the outskirts of Kyiv and other fronts. Ukraine’s state power company, Energoatom, said the pullout at…

MARIUPOL, Ukraine • Corpses lie in the streets of Mariupol. Hungry people break into stores in search of food and melt snow for water. Thousands huddle in basements, trembling at the sound of Russian shells pounding this strategic port city. “Why shouldn’t I cry?” Goma Janna demanded as she wept by the light of an…