Reporting on Ukraine

An entrance sign outside the Donetsk region in southeastern Ukraine, where fierce fighting continues, stands as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance. (All photos c. Martin Kuz) Ukraine declared its independence 35 years ago today as the Soviet Union lumbered toward collapse. Above government buildings, universities and public squares, the country’s blue and yellow flag flew again, the radiant emblem of a sovereign nation unchained from foreign rule — which is to say, from Moscow.

An image shown during the Ohio Parole Board’s hearing on Tyrone Noling’s petition for clemency in Columbus on Tuesday. Sentenced to death in 1996 for the double murder of an elderly couple outside Akron, he has never wavered in maintaining his innocence. (c. Martin Kuz) I’ll ask for your forgiveness and forbearance up front. The following piece has nothing to do with Ukraine. But a man’s life is at stake, and Substack is my best available platform to spread the word about his case and cause.

A U.S. Army soldier looks out from the back of a Chinook helicopter flying above western Afghanistan in October 2011. (c. Martin Kuz) A shorter version of this essay originally appeared in the Minnesota Star Tribune. I’m posting the full piece here because of the relevance of the American-Israeli war on Iran to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Mother Ukraine monument and the Ukrainian flag rise above the Dnipro River in Kyiv. (c. Martin Kuz) Volodymyr Zelensky sacked the country’s top general today in response to swelling street protests across Ukraine that erupted after the president fired Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov a week ago. The axing of Gen.

A drone hangs inside a war museum in Kyiv. During Mykhailo Fedorov’s brief tenure as defense minister, Ukraine achieved the status of drone superpower. (c. Martin Kuz) Mass protests ignited across Ukraine on Thursday in the aftermath of Volodymyr Zelensky’s abrupt decision to oust his defense minister earlier this week.

A young Ukrainian soldier lies buried in a military cemetery in southeastern Austria beneath a gray cross cut from serpentine stone. On a withering summer day in 2023, I traveled with my partner, Emily, to the quiet town of Feldbach to visit him. He had fallen in battle near his final resting place almost 80 years earlier in the last days of World War II in Europe.

A video screenshot shows the impact of a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in Kyiv on June 2, part of a wide-scale attack across the capital and Ukraine that night. (Courtesy video provided by Ruslan Khmyz.) The malign shadow of Russia has never lifted from the path of faith that Roman Khalus began following more than a decade ago as he prepared for the priesthood.

Russian shelling destroyed a home in Petropavlivka, a village in eastern Ukraine seized by invading forces. (c. Martin Kuz) The city of Enerhodar nestles on the eastern edge of the Dnipro River in an area of southern Ukraine under Russian occupation. As the crow flies, the nearest point of land controlled by the Ukrainian military lies on the opposite bank 5 miles away. As a wartime reality, the nearest point of entry into free Ukraine for the city’s captive residents lies 1,200 miles away.

A destroyed Russian tank abandoned in a field in eastern Ukraine. (c. Martin Kuz) The TV news clip playing on Andriy Konovart’s phone showed him smiling and shirtless on a warm summer day in a past life. Outside Lviv’s regal opera house, he appeared with several of his teammates from the Dynamo water polo club to promote the sport’s national tournament taking place in the city. Wearing swim briefs and caps, the young men, lean and loose-limbed, tossed banter and a water polo ball back and forth.

A jacket lies in the rubble of a destroyed apartment building in the eastern city of Izium, which Ukrainian troops freed from Russian occupation in fall 2022. (c. Martin Kuz) Victoria Redko brought a homemade meal to her mother almost every Wednesday afternoon for a quarter-century. She prepared containers of favorite Ukrainian foods — borsch, dumplings, potato pancakes — before walking the mile to the house where she grew up and Olena Shevchenko still lived.