Author: Wire Service

The United States says it has “highly credible” intelligence reports that Russia is planning to annex two Ukrainian regions and declare a third “people’s republic” in the southeast. Moscow may annex the two existing proxy states – the self-described people’s republics in Luhansk and Donetsk “some time in mid-May,” the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Michael Carpenter, said on May 2. There were also indications that Russia had designs on Kherson by turning the southeastern city into a third “people’s republic.” Russia currently controls Kherson. Last week, Moscow said it plans to...

The United States Congress has passed lend-lease legislation that will make it easier to export military equipment to Ukraine, reviving a World War II-era US weapons financing program. The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly backed the “Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022” on April 28 by a vote of 417 to 10, sending the bill to President Joe Biden for his signature. The bill had sailed through the Senate with unanimous support. The measure revives a World War II-era arrangement that allowed Washington to lend or lease military equipment to Great Britain and other allies at little cost....

The United Nations Institute for the Preparation and Research of Satellite Images recently estimated the devastating level of destruction in Ukrainian cities, after they were assaulted and occupied by invading Russian forces. According to the data, in the Kyiv suburb of Irpin, 71% of the city’s buildings and infrastructure were destroyed. Like neighboring settlements, Irpin became a shield that did not allow the enemy in the first days of the offensive to capture the capital. What the citizens had to sacrifice to protect their nation can be seen in the drone images by Mіshа Djоs. Until the mass return...

President Joe Biden’s administration has announced a new program on April 21 that will make it easier for Ukrainian refugees to be resettled in the United States, as the Russian offensive in their home country continues. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement that the “new streamlined process” will allow Ukrainians to apply for humanitarian parole, a status that does not provide a pathway to residency or citizenship, but allows people to stay and work in the U.S. for two years. To be eligible for the program, dubbed “Uniting for Ukraine,” they must have been residents...

Since Russia’s invasion began in late February 2022, universities, schools, theaters, hospitals, and many other civilian sites in Ukraine have been destroyed by Russian shelling and more than four million people have so far fled the country. Faced with the devastating consequences of its actions, Russia has increasingly fallen back on a single legal justification: human shields. Indeed, Moscow repeatedly suggested that Ukraine’s military is deliberately using civilians as a screen to defend legitimate military targets. On February 25, just hours after the invasion began, Russian President Vladimir Putin appealed directly to the personnel of the armed forces of...