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A third Russian airfield was ablaze on Tuesday from a drone strike, a day after Ukraine demonstrated an apparent new ability to penetrate hundreds of kilometers deep into Russian air space with attacks on two Russian air bases. Officials in the Russian city of Kursk, located close to Ukraine, released pictures of black smoke above an airfield in the early morning hours of Tuesday after the latest strike. The governor said an oil storage tank there had been set ablaze but there were no casualties. It came a day after Russia confirmed it had been hit hundreds of kilometers from...

The reports come as Russia faces mounting outrage from the international community for numerous alleged human rights abuses in Ukraine Ukrainian citizens have reportedly been tortured, raped and summarily executed by Russian soldiers during the country's invasion of Ukraine, United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack claimed last week. The reports come as Russia faces mounting outrage from the international community for numerous alleged human rights abuses, including possible war crimes, during its invasion of Ukraine. For instance, Russian soldiers are believed to have murdered residents of Bucha, where dozens of bodies were found in the streets,...

Day 261: November 11 Today the process of liberation of the Dnipro River’s western bank was completed, and the Ukrainians are celebrating their victory in the center of the city. Such rapid developments gave rise to many conspiracy theories that try to explain everything purely from the political point of view, ignoring half a year of the context of what has actually been happening on the ground. As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle and whatever political decisions may have been made, they were still based on the situation on the ground. So, in this video, I will...

-snip- “In all wars that Russia [and the Soviet Union] has ever fought, it relies entirely on the number of people,” Nazar says. “[Soviet Field Marshal Georgy] Zhukov said in World War II: ‘men’s deaths are not a problem, women will give birth to more of them’. That’s their viewpoint. A human for them is just a unit, a resource,” he says. He attempts to have the opposite relationship with his soldiers. “I’ve worked with American commanders and advisors,” Nazar says. “They have a great phrase: ‘do as I do’. It’s their motto, and I try to follow it as...

Estimates of projected weather in Ukraine show Europe might experience a mild winter, potentially throwing a wrench in Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans to use Ukraine's harsh winters to his benefit. Two weeks ago, a Russian politician suggested on state TV that the Kremlin should target Ukraine's energy supply, causing civilians to freeze and starve. Throughout October, Russia has increased its attacks on civilian infrastructure, targeting the electrical grid and plummeting parts of Ukraine into darkness and leaving some residents without a water supply. However, as winter approaches, new reports show Russia's plans to use cold weather to its advantage...

On the screen of a thermal imaging camera, the Russian armored personnel carrier disappeared in a silent puff of smoke. “What a beautiful explosion,” said First Lt. Serhiy, a Ukrainian drone pilot who watched as his weapon buzzed into a Russian-controlled village and picked off the armored vehicle, a blast that was audible seconds later at his position about four miles away. “We used to cheer, we used to shout, ‘Hurray!’ but we’re used to it now,” he said. The war in Ukraine has been fought primarily through the air, with artillery, rockets, missiles and drones. And for months, Russia...

A report commissioned by the United Nations this month found Russian forces in Ukraine committed an array of war crimes, including summary executions, torture, rape and other acts of sexual violence against Ukrainian civilians. The report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine details violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in four regions occupied by Russian armed forces. The commission focused its investigations largely in the regions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy. In preparing the report, the commission conducted 191 interviews and traveled to 27 cities over five separate visits. In some cases, the commission...

When her recently mobilised brother rang from the frontline last week, Olesya Shishkanova recorded the phone call – and with it, a litany of complaints. “They gave us absolutely no equipment. The army has nothing, we had to buy all our gear ourselves,” complained Vladimir, 23, who was conscripted as part of Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation earlier this month. “I even had to paint my gun to cover the rust. It is a nightmare ... Soon they’ll make us buy our own grenades,” he added in the call that Shishkanova uploaded on her page on the Russian social media site VK....

Even more territories Ukraine is liberating, it's fantastic news yet again!

A costly troop mobilization, plunging energy prices and a new round of Western sanctions threaten to bear down on Russia’s already embattled economy and undermine the financial underpinnings of President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. ... Capital Economics estimates that Russia’s total oil-and-gas export revenues will halve from around $340 billion this year to $170 billion in 2023, a loss equivalent to more than twice Russia’s defense budget last year. ... “People are escaping where they can,” Mr. Mironov said. “These are mainly highly skilled, educated workers. So this mobilization is going to have a severe economic effect not just...

Slovakia's parliament on Tuesday ratified the entry of Finland and Sweden to NATO, becoming one of the last countries to back the military alliance's expansion... NATO's 30 members have been ratifying their entry since accession protocols were signed in July. With Slovakia's vote, only Hungary and Turkey remain to approve the expansion... Hungary's parliament has the motion on Finland and Sweden's NATO membership on its agenda, but no date is set as lawmakers return after a summer recess.

It would be easy to underestimate Valeriy Zaluzhny. When not in uniform, the general prefers T-shirts and shorts that match his easygoing sense of humor. When he first heard from aides to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late July 2021 that he was being tapped to lead the country’s armed forces, his stunned response was, “What do you mean?” As it sank in that he would become commander in chief, he tells TIME in his first interview since the Russian invasion began, he felt as if he had been punched “not just below the belt but straight into a knockout.”...

Ukrainian officials announced on Friday that they had exhumed more than 400 bodies at a mass burial site near Izium, Kharkiv region, from which Russian troops recently retreated after a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Many of those buried there, they said, apparently died a violent death — bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs, ropes around their necks, broken bones and gunshot wounds; some men had their genitalia severed. VOA Eastern Europe Bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze visited the site.