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]
A dream come true: Ukraine begins EU membership talks a decade after Putin illegally seized Crimea
The European Union on June 25 launched membership talks with Ukraine, a decade after Russian troops seized the Crimean Peninsula to deter the country from moving closer to the West, part of a chain of events that set the two neighbors on the path to war....
Former Vice President Mike Pence visits Irpin during unannounced campaign trip to Kyiv
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...
Iryna Suslova: The superwoman saving Ukrainian children abducted by Russia
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...
How a group of Ukrainian mothers, wives, and daughters are distributing vital humanitarian aid
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...
Freeing Freddie: Educational program aims to reduce PTSD for Ukraine’s war-weary children
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...
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....
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...
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...
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....
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...
Russia rejects compliance of its last remaining nuclear arms treaty with the United States
By Nina Srinivasan Rathbun, Professor of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences After decades of progress on limiting the buildup of nuclear weapons, Russia’s war on Ukraine has prompted renewed nuclear tensions between Russia and...
Cambodian mine clearing experts train Ukrainian soldiers how to safely remove Russian mines at home
Cambodian experts, whose country has the dubious distinction of being one of the world’s most contaminated by landmines, walked a group of Ukrainian soldiers through a minefield being actively cleared recently, hoping their decades of experience would help the...
Cost of not investing: Why rebuilding Ukraine becomes more expensive each day of Russia’s occupation
By Jeffrey Kucik, Associate Professor at the University of Arizona, University of Arizona U.S. military assistance is finally on its way to Ukraine after months of being held up in Congress. Reactions to the US$61 billion spending package, signed into law by President...
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.
