Russian invasion of Ukraine
Special Coverage
Vladimir Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that he started in 2014. The invasion received widespread international condemnation, including massive economic sanctions. Milwaukee’s Ukrainian American community began with immigrants in the early twentieth century, and continued to grow in the years after World War II and the fall of the Soviet Union.
These news stories cover the local connections in Milwaukee to an international crisis, and all the complexities woven into America’s political climate.
- Links to complete news coverage of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine: mkeind.com/ukraine
- Reports from Ukraine – Series of news reports from May 2022 in Ukraine: mkeind.com/reportsfromukraine
- Return to Ukraine – Series of news reports from June-July 2023 in Ukraine: mkeind.com/returntoukraine
- Selected features that focus on news from Milwaukee’s Sister City of Irpin: mkeind.com/irpin
Featured: Jennifer Vosters: A visit to Kyiv that offered insight, awareness, and an inspiration for solidarity [Feb 24, 2022]
Crimea and the war for identity: From the Mongol siege of Kiev to Putin’s campaign to erase Ukraine
In December of 1240, the Mongol Empire unleashed hell upon the capital of Kievan Rus’. Under the command of Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, the Mongol horde breached the fortified city of Kiev after a ten-week siege. What followed was a calculated massacre....
How Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web tore apart the idea that aircraft far behind the front lines are safe
By Benjamin Jensen, Professor of Strategic Studies at the Marine Corps University School of Advanced Warfighting; Scholar-in-Residence, American University School of International Service A series of blasts at airbases deep inside Russia on June 1, 2025, came as a...
An estimated 30,000 North Korean troops prepare to join Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine
North Korea is expected to deploy tens of thousands of troops to the frontlines of the war in Ukraine, in what intelligence assessments describe as one of the most significant foreign reinforcements to Russian ground forces since the invasion began. The move could...
Russia’s slave labor pact with North Korea exposes brutal alliance built on fear and repressive control
While Russia is waging an undeclared war on Ukraine, it is outsourcing reconstruction of its destroyed infrastructure and battlefield logistics to one of the world’s most brutally oppressed populations. In a June agreement emblematic of both desperation and disregard...
Army of Drones: Why Ukraine turned some battlefield operations into a point-based video game
More than three years into a war that was expected to last just days, Ukraine has continued to rewrite the modern military playbook. Facing a vastly larger and better equipped adversary in Russia, Ukrainian forces have leaned into technological adaptation not simply...
Milwaukee hosts U.S. premiere of film documenting Russia’s brutal war on education in occupied Ukraine
The North American premiere of “War on Education,” the acclaimed documentary about Ukraine by filmmaker Stefano Di Pietro, arrived in Milwaukee on June 1 with a message of urgency and a quiet sense of warning. The film investigated how Russia’s brutal 2022...
Autopsies indicate an intentional system of brutality as Ukrainian POWs die in Russian prisons
“Everything will be all right.” Ukrainian soldier Serhii Hryhoriev said this so often during brief phone calls from the front that his wife and two daughters took it to heart. His younger daughter, Oksana, tattooed the phrase on her wrist as a talisman....
U2’s Bono questions if the world still values mercy as peace retreats in an age overshadowed by war
Cannes is a short trip from Bono’s seaside villa in Eze-sur-Mer. He bought it with The Edge in 1993, and considers himself grateful to a coastline that, he said, gave him a “delayed adolescence.” “I can tell you I’ve slept on beaches...
Drone battlefields: Ukraine’s advanced tactics shows U.S. deficiencies in adapting to modern warfare
A battlefield revolution is unfolding across Ukraine, driven by wire-guided FPV drones and improvised strike tactics that have transformed front-line warfare into a test of adaptability and production, not just firepower. While this shift continues to alter the...
Ukrainian drones destroy more than 40 strategic warplanes in a stunning attack deep within Russia
A Ukrainian drone attack has destroyed more than 40 Russian planes deep in Russia’s territory, Ukraine’s Security Service said on June 1, while Moscow pounded Ukraine with missiles and drones just hours before a new round of direct peace talks in Istanbul....
Russia’s claim of Kursk victory masks deeper failures as Ukrainian forces hold ground amid fading momentum
The brutal Soviet-style dictator, Vladimir Putin, visited Russia’s Kursk region for the first time since Moscow claimed that it had supposedly driven Ukrainian forces out of the area. On May 21, the Russian military announced that its troops had fully reclaimed...
Ukraine’s allies hit Russia with new sanctions after Trump’s phone call with Putin brings no ceasefire
Kyiv’s European allies slapped new sanctions May 20 on Moscow, a day after an over-hyped phone call between the American autocrat Donald Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin failed to produce a breakthrough on ending the 3-year-old war in Ukraine, which...
The Mariupol Plan: How Trump betrayed America and intended to help Putin carve up Ukraine
In the shadows of two controversial elections and the worst European war since the defeat of Nazi Germany, one truth has emerged with brutal clarity: Donald Trump was never an agent of peace. He was the delivery mechanism for Vladimir Putin’s blueprint to dismantle...
Featured: Photos from the frontlines: Sergi Mykhalchuk documents images of war as civilians evacuate Irpin [Mar 16, 2022]
Featured: Milwaukee formalizes Sister City status with Ukraine’s Irpin [Mar 23, 2018]
Milwaukee has a small but thriving Ukrainian American community, and Irpin is a sister city. Follow our special coverage at mkeind.com/ukraine for updates on Putin’s invasion, and about how the fight by Ukrainian people to preserve their democracy is having an impact on the families and businesses here in Milwaukee. 🇺🇦 Слава Україні! Героям слава!
Help maintain a reliable news source in Ukraine by supporting the Kyiv Independent, an English-language media outlet created by journalists who were fired from the Kyiv Post for defending editorial independence. Donations can be made via patreon or gofundme.
