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]
Russia’s effort to keep control of an independent Ukraine it once colonized has lasted decades
Oleksandr Donii was one of the leaders of student-led protests for sovereignty and political reform in 1990 that preceded Ukraine’s declaration of independence. He remembers thinking the fight for autonomy would take decades. Instead, it came much sooner than he...
Trump hands Putin global stage and legitimacy while sidelining Ukraine and weakening U.S. alliances
On August 15, military personnel from the United States of America literally rolled out a red carpet for a dictator who invaded a sovereign country and is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, including the stealing of children. Apparently coached...
Zelenskyy meets with Trump and EU leaders under pressure for concessions to end Russia’s invasion
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump expressed hope that their critical meeting on August 18 with European leaders at the White House could soon lead to three-party talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring an end to his war on Ukraine....
Crimea and beyond: A timeline of Russia’s land grabs during its brutal invasions of Ukraine
Russia’s illegal seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014 was quick and bloodless, and it sent Moscow’s relations with the West into a downward spiral unseen since the Cold War. It also paved the way for Russia’s full-scale...
War and Criminals: Trump’s meeting with Putin ends in epic failure to end bloodshed in Ukraine as promised
Donald Trump failed to secure an agreement from Vladimir Putin on August 15 to end Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine, falling short in his most significant move yet to stop the bloodshed, even after rolling out the red carpet for the dictator who started it. The 2...
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....
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...
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.
