Author: Reporter

Unacknowledged Prisoners of War: Ukrainian civilians vanish or languish in squalid Russian-run jails

Alina Kapatsyna often dreams about getting a phone call from her mother. In those visions, her mother tells her that she’s coming home. Men in military uniforms took 45-year-old Vita Hannych away from her house in eastern Ukraine in April. She never returned. Her family later learned that Hannych, who has long suffered from seizures because of a brain cyst, is in custody in the Russian-occupied part of the Donetsk region. Kapatsyna told The Associated Press that it remains unclear why her mother — “a peaceful, civilian and sick person” who has never held a weapon — was detained....

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European Union’s assembly calls for special court to judge Russian war crimes in Ukraine

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...

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How the Wagner Group’s inhuman brutality gave Russia an advantage in its unprovoked war

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...

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Forced separations are an all too common condition as war rips young Ukrainian family apart

University student Vlada Yushchenko was still in her teens and nearly three months pregnant when she hugged her husband at the border, turned away and walked into Moldova. Now she is in Romania, one of the millions of Ukrainians forced to flee Russia’s invasion. Her baby, Daniel, was born there eight months ago and still hasn’t met his father Yaroslav, who is 21 and, like most men of fighting age, prohibited from leaving Ukraine. “Nobody expected the war was coming and that we weren’t going to be together,” said Yushchenko, who has settled for now in the central Romanian...

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Russia diverts attention from continued military blunders with terror attacks on Ukrainian civilians

Russia used strategic bombers, cruise missiles and killer drones in a wave of attacks across Ukraine on February 10, while Moscow’s military push that Kyiv says has been brewing for days appeared to pick up pace in eastern areas ahead of the one-year anniversary of its invasion. Russian forces have launched 71 cruise missiles, 35 S-300 missiles and seven Shahed drones since February 9, Ukraine’s military chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi said. Ukrainian forces downed 61 cruise missiles and five drones. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has campaigned for more Western support against Russia’s military ambitions, said: “This is terror...

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Report details how Ukrainian health care system was deliberately and indiscriminately targeted by Russia

Valentyna Mozgova sweeps shattered glass and other debris from the vacant halls of the bombed-out hospital where she began her career. Living in the basement, the 55-year-old lab technician now works as its solitary guard. Russian artillery strikes targeted Marinskaya Central District Hospital in 2017 and again in 2021. But numerous barrages over the last seven months forced the hospital’s medical staff to flee, destroying key departments such as neurology and gynecology, as well as a general medical clinic in the process. Mozgova chose to stay. Having worked in the hospital’s laboratories since graduating from medical school in the...

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