Author: Aleksander Palikot / RFE/RL

KYIV – Click from one Ukrainian news channel to another these days and you’re likely to find the exact same show you just surfed away from. For years, television here had a lot of variety, with several major channels presenting news in a way that accentuated their independence or advanced the agenda of the super-rich...

KOSTYANTYNIVKA, Ukraine – “I have a photo that was taken in the Klishchiyivka trenches on my birthday last summer, and I want to take a new one by the end of this month,” a special forces soldier with the call sign “Frantsuz” – the Frenchman – said as he headed for a meeting of his...

KAMYANSKE, Ukraine – The river flowing through this village in the Zaporizhia region separates territory controlled by Ukrainian and Russian forces and then flows into the Kakhovka Reservoir, now almost empty after the breach of the big dam downstream on the Dnipro. It is here – on the destroyed bridge that spanned the Yanchekrak River,...

KHERSON, Ukraine – Russian forces shelled the Kherson area shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on June 8 visited the southern region where rescue teams are working to save thousands of people trapped by catastrophic flooding caused by the rupture of a major dam on the Dnipro River. An RFE/RL correspondent on the ground reported...

KHERSON, Ukraine – A thick plume of smoke stretching across the horizon behind the overflowing Dnipro and the level of water flooding the riverbank: Those two things commanded the attention of residents of this southern Ukrainian city who were lucky enough to have their homes left intact as a humanitarian and environmental crisis unfolded around...

KHMELNYTSKIY, Ukraine – Two weeks before residents of this quiet city in the west of Ukraine gathered around its main cathedral for the traditional blessing of Easter baskets, a brawl broke out between a priest and a soldier inside the building, sending shock waves throughout the region and the entire country. “How many more people...

KYIV – On March 10, thousands of civilians and soldiers marched together through the central streets of the capital, chanting “Glory to Ukraine” and “Glory to the heroes” in a tribute to Dmytro Kotsyu­baylo, the youngest commander ever to be decorated as a Hero of Ukraine and the first volunteer fighter to be granted the...

KYIV – One day last June, Ivan Mishchenko was holding a Zoom conference call with international legal experts as he sheltered in a trench near Izium, a Kharkiv region city that was under Russian occupation at the time. During the online session, he received a radio message saying that an enemy helicopter was approaching his...

KYIV – A pile of boxes filled with body bags welcomed visitors to the headquarters of the Ukrainian Women Veteran Movement, Ukraine’s biggest female soldiers’ organization, on a recent afternoon. The empty bags were ready to be shipped to Bakhmut, a city in the Donetsk region where deadly fighting has raged for months, said Olena...

KYIV – When fuses blew and the music stopped at a rave party at the techno club Otel on the first weekend in December, shaven-headed men stripped to the waist and quirkily dressed women in sunglasses didn’t miss a beat, dancing on to their own rhythmic chants. As the wall of sound crumbled after each...

KHARKIV, Ukraine – Tamara Halishnikova doesn’t remember how long the attack targeting her and other residents trying to escape the Russia-occupied village of Kurylivka lasted. All she remembers are the sounds that rang out as the column of vehicles made its way along a railway embankment that late-September morning. “There was an explosion, then automatic-weapons...

KYIV – When Ukrainian soldiers tore a poster with the Russian flag from a billboard in Balakliya, a city in the Kharkiv region that was liberated on September 8, they unexpectedly revealed a poem by Ukraine’s foremost 19th-century poet, Taras Shevchenko, beneath. “Keep fighting – you are sure to win!” read the words of one...