Author: Reporter

A year ago, with Russian forces bearing down on Ukraine’s capital, Western leaders feared for the life of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and advised him to flee. The U.S. offered him an escape route. Instead, he filmed a defiant video of himself on a darkened street outside the presidential offices with his four closest aides arrayed behind him. “We are all here,” Zelenskyy said in a declaration of their determination to stay in Kyiv and defend Ukraine’s independence. It was powerful political theater. From the first days of the war, when few expected Ukraine’s army to hold up against a...

In the final hours before the Russian onslaught, a last grasp at peace. Russian troops would soon pour across Ukraine’s borders and Russian missiles would fill Ukrainian skies, taking Ukrainian lives in the biggest air, sea and ground assault in Europe since World War II. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy still appealed, on war’s brink, for reason to prevail. Staring intently into the camera in a last-ditch, dead-of-night, video-recorded plea against the invasion, Zelenskyy warned Russia that the consequences would be “an abundance of pain, filth, blood and death.” “War is a huge calamity,” Zelenskyy said, in what proved...

A “people’s court” put Russian President Vladimir Putin on trial February 20 for the crime of aggression over his invasion of Ukraine, in a symbolic move to close an “accountability gap” in the absence of an international tribunal with jurisdiction. The court has no legal powers but prosecutors said they will present evidence that Putin committed the crime of aggression by ordering the invasion nearly a year ago, unleashing a devastating war that has killed thousands and left towns and cities in ruins. “This is a crime that belongs in the annals of infamy. It is a crime that...

The European Union’s assembly called on the member states recently to back the creation of a special court to judge any war crime of aggression by Russia in Ukraine. The non-binding resolution was approved by a 472-19 vote with 33 abstentions in the European Parliament, and underscored the EU’s willingness to make sure Moscow should be brought to justice for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The legislature called on the EU “to work in close cooperation with Ukraine to seek and build political support in the U.N. General Assembly and other international forums … for creating the special tribunal for...

Fierce battles in eastern Ukraine have thrown a new spotlight on Russia’s Wagner Group, a private military company led by a rogue millionaire with longtime links to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Wagner has spearheaded the push to jump-start Russia’s stalemated offensive in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province. The ferocious house-to house fighting has produced some of the bloodiest encounters since Russia sent troops into Ukraine, with Wagner personnel “marching on the bodies of their own soldiers” as Ukrainian authorities put it. The U.S. this week expanded sanctions against Wagner for its role in Ukraine and mercenary activities in Africa. Here...