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]
Why a U.S. archbishop’s meeting with Putin was denounced as “betrayal of Christian witness”
An American Orthodox archbishop’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, in which they exchanged warm greetings and gifts of holy icons, is drawing a denunciation by Ukrainian Orthodox bishops in the United States. They called it a...
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...
Propaganda’s reach: How Kremlin disinformation tactics echo in Trump’s America and erode truth
As Russia wages its brutal and unprovoked war on Ukraine, a troubling alignment has emerged not only among those inside Russia’s media sphere, but also among some Ukrainian Americans and conservative U.S. TV viewers who repeat narratives that mirror Kremlin...
Ukrainians remain hopeful but feel uncertain as Russia illegally holds thousands of civilians captive
When she heard her front door open almost two years ago, Kostiantyn Zinovkin’s mother thought her son had returned home because he forgot something. Instead, men in balaclavas burst into the apartment in Melitopol, a southern Ukrainian city occupied by Russian...
Capture of Chinese soldiers fighting alongside Russia is latest example of China’s geopolitical looting
The Ukrainian military has captured two Chinese men fighting alongside the Russian army in the eastern Donetsk region and has information that “significantly more” are with Russian forces, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on April 8....
Life goes on in the Ukrainian city of Sumy despite the bloody Palm Sunday attack and daily threats
The humdrum of daily life in Sumy belies the constant threat of death its people have lived with since Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago. Days after Russia targeted the city’s center in back-to-back missile strikes, killing 35 people and injuring more than...
Why Putin covets Ukraine’s territory and turned Crimea from a playground into a battleground
Russia’s seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine exactly 11 years ago on March 18, 2014, was quick and bloodless, but 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...
A small Ukrainian theater reinvents itself with an all-female cast while male actors are away at war
The 43-year-old Ukrainian actor took to the stage wearing a black leather jacket and with a moustache painted on her face. Ruslana Ostapko was performing in multiple traditionally male roles in a recent production of the Chernihiv Regional Youth Theater. With so many...
Ukrainian veteran amputees crippled by Russia’s full-scale invasion learn adaptive skiing in U.S.
Ukrainian war veteran Oleksandr Shvachka lost his left leg to Russian tank fire outside Kyiv. Three years on, the latest step in his physical and mental rehabilitation recently unfolded under a brilliant blue sky on a snow-covered mountain more than 5,000 miles away....
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...
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.
