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]
Olena Zelenska: Ukraine’s youth should see themselves as “a generation of winners” not victims of war
Ukraine’s First Lady wants her country’s children to view themselves not as a generation enduring a grinding war but rather as “a generation of winners.” On the sidelines of a day spent at a rehabilitation camp for Ukrainian children in the...
From Weddings to War: How Kostiantyn and Vlada Liberov photograph Ukraine’s daily horrors
Return to Ukraine: This feature is part of an original Milwaukee Independent editorial series that recorded news from areas across Ukraine, including Milwaukee's sister city of Irpin, from June to July of 2023. It was the second time in the span of a year that the...
Being Friends of Angels: The Milwaukee nonprofit saving lives and offering hope in Ukraine
Return to Ukraine: This feature is part of an original Milwaukee Independent editorial series that recorded news from areas across Ukraine, including Milwaukee's sister city of Irpin, from June to July of 2023. It was the second time in the span of a year that the...
Fear grows over deliberate leak by Russia at Europe’s biggest nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine
Ukraine continues to accuse Russia of planning to attack one of the world’s largest nuclear power plants, but has not provided evidence to support the claims of an imminent threat to the facility in southeastern Ukraine that is occupied by Russian troops. The...
U.S. defends controversial plan to deliver cluster munitions to Ukraine with promise of careful usage
President Joe Biden recently defended what he said was a “difficult decision” to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, a move the administration said was key to the fight and buttressed by Ukraine’s promise to use the controversial bombs carefully....
Volodymyr Karplyuk: Irpin needs to be heard as the city faces both problems and progress with recovery
Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau, Anthony Blinken, Olaf Scholz, Bono from U2, Mario Draghi. About 100 world-famous people have visited Irpin over the past 9 months. Destroyed, but unconquered Irpin has become an attractive photo zone for foreign guests and a symbol of...
Millions have seen power restored since blackouts swept across war-battered Ukraine days earlier
Ukrainian authorities endeavored on Holodomor Memorial Day to restore electricity and water services after recent pummeling by Russian military strikes that vastly damaged infrastructure, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying millions have seen their power...
Experts from Ukraine join NATO probe of fatal missile strike that killed two in Poland
Experts from Ukraine have joined Polish and American investigators who are looking into a missile blast that killed two men in eastern Poland this week. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on November 18 that the Ukrainian experts were at the grain-drying...
Zdyrko Yaroslav: My journey across Ukraine to report on the war with a photojournalist from Milwaukee
“Without the help of the Milwaukee Independent’s editorial team for the project Reports From Ukraine, I would not have been able to take a single photograph. Very heartfelt thanks is due them. Yaroslav Zdyrko provided security, logistical support, and was our...
Holodomor Memorial Day: Honoring Ukrainian victims on 90th anniversary of Stalin’s genocide and famine
The observation of Holodomor Memorial Day on November 26, a solemn time to remember the Ukrainian people who were victims of Stalin’s genocide by famine, takes place against a backdrop in 2022 that parallels the cruelty of 90 years ago. Following the playbook of...
Mariupol’s Holodomor Memorial destroyed by occupation troops to further erase Ukrainian history
Russian occupiers of Mariupol dismantled the Monument to the Victims of Holodomor in late October, the Famine of 1932-33 created by dictator Joseph Stalin that claimed the lives of millions of Ukrainians. The current Russian regime has asserted...
World Health Organization warns that millions face a “life-threatening” winter in Ukraine
Rolling blackouts across Ukraine may continue through March, according to one of the country’s energy chiefs, as Ukrainians brace for a grim winter after weeks of relentless Russian strikes against its power grid. Sergey Kovalenko, CEO of private energy provider...
Weaponizing migration: How Russia and Belarus are targeting Poland to benefit Europe’s far-right
A Somali woman pushed her bandaged hand between two vertical bars of a thick metal barrier separating Belarus from Poland, as she and four other women gazed toward the European Union. They nodded gratefully as a Polish humanitarian aid worker called to them across 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.
