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Over more than four years of all-out war, Russia has used financial incentives, coercion, and threats to keep up the flow of men to fight in Ukraine. Now recruiters are increasingly forcing men to sign contracts to fight. That could be major problem for the Kremlin.
At least nine people were killed and dozens more injured, including a child, in an overnight Russian missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, city authorities reported.
Ukrainian drone operators from the K-2 Brigade are using medium-range strike UAVs to target Russian logistics, air defenses, and military vehicles behind the front line. RFE/RL visited the unit's command center in Ukraine's Donetsk region to see how these operations are planned and carried out.
There’s no gasoline for ambulances in one region. In another, they’ve suspended garbage pickup because there’s no fuel for trucks. There’s a robust black market where you can pay someone to hold your place in endless lines of drivers hoping to fill up cars. Russia’s gasoline crisis is deepening.
In this week's Wider Europe briefing, Rikard Jozwiak drills down on how to prevent Russian combatants from entering the EU and how Brussels is planning to prolong the rights of Ukrainian refugees.
Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged what outside experts, many regional officials, and everyday citizens have already noticed: Russia is facing energy shortages, causing major problems for citizens and industries.
Service members embraced their relatives as they returned home to Ukraine on June 26 in the latest prisoner exchange with Russia. Many of the 160 freed Ukrainians had been held captive since 2022, including soldiers who defended the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol during a lengthy siege.
Ukraine struck a Russian military plant in Volgograd overnight with FP-5 “Flamingo” missiles, as Russia launched another major drone attack against Ukraine. The strikes came as Russian authorities declared a state of emergency in Crimea due to ongoing Ukrainian attacks and damage to infrastructure.
In a suburb near Zaporizhzhya, in Ukraine's southeast, residents say civilian areas previously considered safe are now being targeted by Russian drones. City officials have restricted public transit routes and installed anti-drone nets in high-traffic areas in an effort to protect residents.
Since 2023, Moscow has built up an extensive range of fortifications around the Crimea Bridge linking the occupied Ukrainian Peninsula with mainland Russia. Russian authorities have also reportedly mulled replacing the span with an undersea tunnel.
As Moscow increasingly invokes the “spirit of Anchorage” to claim a framework for ending the war in Ukraine already exists, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has flatly pushed back, opening a fierce diplomatic battle over what actually occurred during last year’s high-stakes summit.
Moscow is building a new missile defense complex near a research institute linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin's daughter, in what appears to be the latest effort to bolster the capital's defenses against potential Ukrainian missile attacks.
A veteran of Russia’s war against Ukraine sparked a stir with a viral video post, demanding a meeting with President Vladimir Putin and warning of a rebellion – before retracting the threat. The episode highlighted growing tensions over a war estimated to have killed half a million Russian soldiers.
Ukraine alleges Russia is using relay stations in Belarus to guide attack drones and change targets mid-flight. The claims have raised tensions with Minsk and drawn renewed attention to Belarus's role in the war.
Ukrainian film artists are determined to build back the loss of 100,000 costumes, used in dozens of historic films, that burned in a Russian air attack on the Dovzhenko National Film Studios on June 15. Current Time's Yulia Zhukova spoke with studio staff about their commitment to cinema heritage.
A Ukrainian photojournalist captured life near the front lines as the Russian invasion into eastern Ukraine persists despite Kyiv's successful drone strikes deep inside Russia.
In this week's briefing, RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak drills down on one issue: EU enlargement as Ireland takes over the EU presidency.
Ukraine's military says it struck oil facilities near the Crimea Bridge and at other sites on the Russian-occupied peninsula on June 23 amid a severe gasoline shortage in Crimea due to escalating attacks.
Since the onset of the all-out invasion in 2022, Ukraine has repeatedly poked at Russian forces -- and Russian tourists -- in occupied Crimea. In recent months, Kyiv’s efforts have become much more deliberate. They appear to be working.
A dispute over a Polish state honor awarded to Volodymyr Zelenskyy has exposed deeper tensions between Warsaw and Kyiv, highlighting how historical grievances and domestic politics could complicate Ukraine's path toward EU membership.
