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 changed battlefield: Ukraine’s bold gamble on an incursion moves deeper into Russian territory
Ukraine’s stunning incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region was a bold gamble for the country’s military commanders, who committed their limited resources to a risky assault on a nuclear-armed enemy with no assurance of success. After the first...
A Narrative of Resilience: How trauma-focused therapy is healing Ukrainian kids besieged by war
By Zlatina Kostova, Instructor in psychiatry, clinical psychologist and director of training at Lifeline for Kids, UMass Chan Medical School Childhood trauma is a global health problem. Every year, up to one billion children worldwide experience some form of...
Political Pawns: Why Russia kidnaps Ukrainian children when it is unable to care for its own
By Clementine Fujimura, Professor of Anthropology, Area Studies and Russian, United States Naval Academy Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian soldiers have forcibly taken an estimated 16,000 Ukrainian children to Russia....
Echoes of Holodomor: Award-winning documentary “Famine” banned by Russia for depiction of cruel past
By Jeremy Hicks, Professor of Russian Culture and Film, Queen Mary University of London In October last year, Russia banned a documentary depicting the famine that hit parts of the Soviet Union including Ukraine between 1921 and 1923 and revoked the film’s screening...
Ukraine tries to outsmart a brutal Russian army distracted by rebellion and infighting
The ambush had been postponed three times before Ukrainian commanders decided one recent night that conditions were finally right. Cloaked in darkness, a battalion of Kyiv’s 129th brigade pressed ahead, advancing stealthily on unsuspecting Russian soldiers. By...
More stories emerge about how Ukrainians hid orphaned children from Russia’s deportation scheme
Hours after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, health staff at a children’s hospital in the south started secretly planning how to save the babies. Russians were suspected of seizing orphan children and sending them to Russia, so staff at the children’s...
Widespread abuses in Ukraine: Reports of Russian torture site in Kherson at police detention center
For 10 days, Alesha Babenko was locked in a basement and regularly beaten by Russian soldiers. Bound, blindfolded and threatened with electric shocks, the 27-year-old pleaded for them to stop. “I thought I was going to die,” said Babenko. In September,...
Targeting civilian power supply earns Russia the “state sponsor of terror” title as winter’s chill begins to bite
By Jonathan Este, Associate Editor, International Affairs Editor Large areas of Ukraine, including the capital, are now without power much of the time. And still Moscow persists with its strategy of targeting Ukraine’s power supply. It’s hard to argue – as the Kremlin...
Putin’s Silence: Russian dictator leaves the bad news of humiliating withdrawals in Ukraine to other leaders
By mid-March, less than a month into the full-scale invasion by Russia, it was immediately clear that Putin’s ambitious campaign was not going to plan. What was expected to take a mere three days on February 24 is now on day 277 on November 27. In that time...
A powerful dynamic of war: Why Ukrainian liberation is an incentive for allies like the United States
Amid the death and destruction war leaves in its wake, there are powerful dynamics and narratives: domination, besieged populations, occupation and their counterparts, resistance, freedom and liberation. Vast swaths of Western and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union...
Ukraine focuses suspicions on Orthodox Christian clergymen seen as being loyal to Russia
An investigation of a centuries-old monastic complex in Ukraine’s capital and other religious sites has underscored Ukrainian authorities’ suspicions about some Orthodox Christian clergymen they see as loyal to Russia despite Moscow’s nine month-old...
Unreachable by air: Ukraine keeps trains running under constant threat across vital rail network
The orders came from on high, from Ukraine’s president and one of his ministers: Get trains running again to the latest city newly retaken by our troops. “So literally: tanks, then trains,” said Ukrainian rail network boss Oleksandr Kamyshin,...
Damaged by war: Vibrant church in Ukraine rises as a symbol of the nation’s faith and culture
During the Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church brought spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago, it also provided physical refuge from the horrors outside. Almost 100 residents sheltered in a basement...
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.
