Author: TheGuardian

Breaking News: Milwaukee’s sister city of Irpin was just declared liberated from Russian forces on March 28. According to Irpin’s Mayor Oleksandr Markushyn, civilians were not yet allowed to return to the city, which is located just northwest of Kyiv. There remains a high risk of further attacks by Russia. Every few minutes, an ambulance or an unmarked white van arrives at a dusty courtyard on the western outskirts of Kyiv and an elderly, frail person is helped at times by stretcher from the back. These are some of the last residents of Irpin, a commuter town a few...

The Russians were hunting us down. They had a list of names, including ours, and they were closing in. We had been documenting the siege of Mariupol by Russian troops for more than two weeks and were the only international journalists left in the city. We were reporting inside the hospital when gunmen began stalking the corridors. Surgeons gave us white scrubs to wear as camouflage. Suddenly at dawn, a dozen soldiers burst in: “Where are the journalists, for f*ck’s sake?” I looked at their armbands, blue for Ukraine, and tried to calculate the odds that they were Russians...

Since Kherson became the first Ukrainian city to be captured during Russia’s invasion, its population of more than 280,000 has been living under brutal occupation. Two female journalists, whose identities are being protected, have been documenting the struggles they see in the port city as brave residents endure and resist against the humanitarian disaster unfolding around them. Monday 28 February There are huge queues for bread. Flour and yeast have disappeared from stores. I bake four loaves, mixing all the flour in the house – corn, rye – because there is not enough wheat. Then I take bread to...

One of the wildest aspects of the first Great Information War is not just that you can follow Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in real time, minute by minute and step by step, but you can also join in. Because in 2022, information is power. And one of the many huge unexpected geopolitical shifts of the last week is that this power has been returned to the people. On March 4 in Russia, Vladimir Putin, a man who is now scared of his own shadow, took the extraordinary step of attempting to outlaw information. He banned Facebook. He shut down Twitter....