Free Republic

KYIV — Ukraine is shrinking. The war has killed tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers. At least 5 million more have fled and live outside Ukraine, and a fifth of the country — another 5 million people — is under Russian occupation. Ukraine’s population at independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 was over 50 million. Now just 31 million live in land controlled by Kyiv. And the number of deaths is nearly three times the number of births, according to the justice minister. These missing Ukrainians — the ones who have fled, the dead, the occupied — have...

A hail of shrapnel from kamikaze drones ripped through the tent where off-duty Ukrainian border guards were sleeping near a crossing with Belarus, three hours north of Ukraine’s capital. Viktor Derevyanko woke to scalding pain, his body burning. Blood spilled from his hand as he tried to wipe his face. A piece of metal had traveled through his arm and stomach and into the muscle around his heart. “I couldn’t get my bearings,” said Derevyanko, the deputy head of the unit. “Only on the third explosion did I manage to fall out of bed and try to find at least...