Author: Syndicated

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin recently signed a decree to simplify the procedure for Russian citizenship, specifically for residents of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts in occupied Ukraine. The action further proves that Putin had every intention to annex Ukrainian territory. The May 25 decree coincided with news from Petro Andriushchenko, Advisor to the Mayor of Mariupol, that the Russian proxy ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ had begun directly issuing Russian passports without going through the pretense of receiving the ‘citizenship’ of the illegal puppet government. The new decree, in fact, was merely supplemental to Putin’s original policy that weaponized citizenship on...

“It’s becoming harder to sell stories about Ukraine,” said one of my colleagues from an international TV crew, as we drove past bombed-out apartment blocks in the town of Borodianka, just north of Kyiv. “People are tired of this war.” I understand. I am Ukrainian. Most of my acquaintances abroad stopped wondering whether I was dead or alive in the third week of Russia’s full-scale invasion. I am currently working as a fixer – a translator, organizer, problem solver – for international television. This is my first visit to the villages and towns north of the capital since they...

Oleksandr Bugeruk covers his mouth in horror as five men lift his mother’s body from a grave using two straps of taught cloth. The men then stumble over the wet, uneven ground as they carry the body away from the grave. One of them begins to retch from the smell as they place the remains on the ground. Forty-nine-year-old Bugeruk says he buried his mother, Lydia Chichko, on March 13 as heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces raged around Kyiv’s suburbs. He recalls the heavy thud of shelling that lit up the night sky as he dug her...

“Women’s war has its own colors, its own smells, its own lighting, and its own range of feelings. There are no heroes and incredible feats, there are simply people who are busy doing inhumanly human things.” – Svetlana Alexievich, “The Unwomanly Face of War” By now, ski season is over in the picturesque town of Zakopane in the south of Poland. The lifts that transport thousands of alpine skiers each year to the foothills of the Tatras Mountains have ground to a halt, dangling eerily in the frosty air. The trees are still mostly bare and flowerless even though...