Throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine, efforts continue to systematically erase all traces of Ukrainian national memory. This campaign against monuments and memorials is chilling proof that Russia’s invasion goes far beyond mere border revisions and ultimately aims to wipe Ukraine off the map entirely. The modern history of a single park in east Ukrainian city Luhansk offers
There was much pomp and pageantry on display recently in former Russian imperial capital Saint Petersburg as Vladimir Putin presided over the country’s annual Navy Day festivities. In truth, however, Putin and his assembled admirals had very little to celebrate. Over the past year, Russia’s once-vaunted Black Sea Fleet has been decimated by Ukrainian drones
The bombing of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital in Kyiv on July 8 has sparked a wave of global condemnation, with US President Joe Biden calling the attack a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality.” Meanwhile, others have noted that this latest airstrike was not an isolated incident. “Once again, Russia has deliberately targeted residential areas and
On June 29, more than eight hundred participants from fifteen countries representing a dozen different religious denominations gathered in the historic heart of Kyiv for Ukraine’s annual National Prayer Breakfast. The day before the breakfast, two Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests, Father Ivan Levytsky and Father Bohdan Geleta, had been released from Russian captivity in a
Belarus engaged in a bout of nuclear saber-rattling on June 30, with Chief of the Belarusian General Staff Pavel Muraveiko declaring that his country would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons if provoked. “We’ve learned how to handle these weapons. We know how to apply them confidently. And you can be sure that we will
On the eve of last weekend’s Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, Vladimir Putin unveiled a peace proposal of his own. The presentation of this rival peace plan was an obvious attempt to undermine Ukraine’s Swiss initiative, but it also served as a timely reminder that Putin is waging an old-fashioned war of imperial conquest and
At dawn in May 2020, a French police raid on a sleepy village near Paris ended a 26-year manhunt for one of the Rwanda genocide’s most notorious fugitives. By October 2022, 89-year-old Felician Kabuga was standing trial in The Hague for crimes without a statute of limitations: Genocide, direct and public incitement to genocide, and conspiracy
World leaders gathered in Normandy on June 6 to mark the eightieth anniversary of the Allied landings in France during World War II. Russian President Vladimir Putin was not invited to attend, but the war he unleashed more than two years ago in Ukraine cast a long shadow over commemorations. In his official address, French
Ukraine achieved a major diplomatic breakthrough last week, securing the green light from key allies for strikes inside Russia using Western weapons. The Russian reaction to this landmark news has bordered on the hysterical, with a host of Kremlin officials and propagandists denouncing the West and vowing terrible revenge. Predictably, Vladimir Putin led the way,
In the coming weeks, the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, the G7 Summit in Italy, the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, and the jubilee NATO Summit in Washington DC will all offer opportunities for the international community to reinforce its support for Ukraine. These high-profile events should also serve as a chance to take stock.
