Nataliya Gumenyuk

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An apartment building struck by a Russian drone in Hlevakha, Ukraine, January 2025 Thomas Peter / Reuters

From afar, the situation Ukraine faces after three years of full-scale war with Russia seems clear. Over the past 12 months, Moscow has intensified its assault on civilian populations, sending drones, missiles, and bombs in almost daily attacks on cities across the country. Infrastructure and power stations have been relentlessly targeted. Millions of people have been displaced, and millions more who fled the country after 2022 have been unable to return. Even as Ukraine has struggled to hold the frontlines, its soldiers continue to be injured and killed.

Given these mounting costs, and that Ukraine has, against all odds, managed to defend 80 percent of its territory, one might expect its citizens to support any effort to end the war.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump in New York, September 2024. Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

As with many other aspects of their war against Russia, Ukrainians have reacted to the outcome of the U.S. presidential election with a certain dark humor. The morning after the election, Ukrainian social media was full of jokes, including by soldiers commenting that they are “preparing to go home soon, since the war will end in 24 hours”. They were referring, of course, to President-elect Donald Trump’s long-standing claim that he could stop the war in a day if he were elected.

Ukraine has many reasons to be concerned about a second Trump presidency. Trump has not said how he would end the war, or even under what conditions.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ukrainian military vehicles at the border with Russia, August 2024. Viacheslav Ratynskyi / Reuters

Launched on August 6, Ukraine’s surprise cross-border offensive into the Kursk region of Russia has startled the world. Not only is the operation far and away the largest Ukrainian attack into Russian territory since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022; it has also come at a time when Ukrainian forces were struggling to preserve their already stretched resources along the existing 3,300-mile front. Yet as of mid-August, Ukrainian forces had penetrated dozens of miles into Russia and gained control of 74 villages and towns in the Kursk region, according to Ukraine’s top military commander. Ukraine has also taken more than 100 Russian prisoners.…  Seguir leyendo »

Swiss President Viola Amherd looks at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as heads of states and country representatives pose for a family photo during the Summit on Peace in Ukraine at a resort near Lucerne, Switzerland, on June 15. Alessandro Della Valle/AFP via Getty Images

Wars usually divide people, but Ukraine received overwhelming international sympathy after the full-scale Russian invasion. This was based on several factors. The unprovoked aggression made a moral stance obvious. Historically, too, Ukraine has never invaded or occupied any country. The many layers of the conflict garnered support on multiple fronts: sovereignty and independence; rule of law and human rights; nuclear and environmental threats; democracy against autocracy; and, in the end, the fact that it’s about an underdog stopping a superpower.

Ukraine’s foreign policy has traditionally focused narrowly on European and trans-Atlantic integration. But now that the country’s future depends on financial and military aid, Ukraine has—for the first time in its —had to proactively engage with the rest of the world.…  Seguir leyendo »

Emergency workers at a destroyed building after a Russian strike, Chernihiv, Ukraine, April 2024. Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters

After more than two years fighting one of the world’s most powerful armies, Ukraine has enacted a new mobilization law—a move hailed by the West as an urgent reform. Signed into law on April 16, the legislation comes at a time when Ukraine faces a series of growing challenges in its defense against Russia, from shortages of Ukraine’s soldiers and ammunition to wavering Western support. In this view, the new law could make it easier for the government to replenish its forces as it prepares for a major Russian offensive this summer.

For Ukrainians, however, the law also represents something else.…  Seguir leyendo »

Putin Is Making His Plans Brutally Clear

New Year’s Eve is an important holiday in Ukraine. At the end of December, I asked my sister how she would be celebrating this year. “In the bomb shelter”, she said, matter-of-factly. She planned to cook sandwiches, which would be easier to carry down to the safe room from the 10th floor if there was an air-raid siren.

In 2023 there were more than 6,000 air alerts in Ukraine. Last month alone, Russia launched some 624 drones carrying explosives, according to official sources. On Dec. 29, more than 120 Russian missiles and drones targeted towns across the country, killing 44 people.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline in Zaporizhzhia on 5 December. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Ivan has been give the name Decent Man by his fellow soldiers, for being a decent man. As a 40-year-old teacher from central Ukraine and the father of three children, he would have been exempt from fighting at the beginning of the war. But he wanted to fight for his country. He has now spent 18 months on the battlefield and desperately misses his family. He might dream of returning home, but so far doesn’t consider being discharged an option. “The country has already spent money and resources on me. How can I leave?” he asks. Another soldier, who used to be a construction worker in a village in eastern Ukraine, speaks about his motivation to continue serving: “I’ve learned how to become a better and more helpful soldier for my colleagues”.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, February 2023. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / Handout / Reuters / Foreign Affairs illustration

In July 2021, seven months before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a group of researchers completed a major study of how Ukrainians viewed key events in their country’s recent history. The report, to which I contributed, yielded some striking findings. The first was that the population was not deeply divided over the country’s Soviet legacy or the 2014 Maidan revolution. Ukrainians of widely different backgrounds and regions, it turned out, shared a deep reservoir of common values and experiences on which they shaped their understanding of history. The second was that the country’s political institutions were generally held in low esteem. People across the board seemed to have a general lack of trust for the country’s leaders, no matter what party they came from, and they blamed many of Ukraine’s problems on its ruling class.…  Seguir leyendo »

Rescue workers and forensic police exhume bodies from makeshift graves at the Pishanske cemetery on Wednesday in Izyum, Ukraine. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

A video shows Ukrainian soldiers who have just freed the town of Balakliya from six months of Russian occupation. They tear down a Russian propaganda slogan from a billboard that declares, “We are one people with Russia”. To their surprise, another text comes to light beneath — a famous stanza from Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko, who was addressing an earlier generation of Ukrainians resisting Russian imperial rule: “Fight on and win! God himself will aid you”. Anyone who watches the scene can’t help but feel how the words resonate today — nearly 200 years after Shevchenko wrote them.

Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive has liberated at least 3,400 square miles of territory, mostly in the northeast, and cut off Russian supply routes.…  Seguir leyendo »

A mother and son in front of their house in Izium, Ukraine, on Wednesday. Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press

Three months ago I met Vyacheslav Zadorenko, a community leader from the Kharkiv region. From the relative safety of Derhachi, he told me about how his village, a settlement on the Russian border, had been occupied in the first days of Russia’s invasion. His mother didn’t manage to escape. “My personal victory”, he said, “would be when I can return to my family house”. In midsummer, as Russia consolidated its gains and slowly secured more, that seemed a sad, impossible dream.

But now it’s come true. A video posted on Telegram shows Mr. Zadorenko reunited with his mother. “I’ve gathered all your things, my dear son”, she says, running toward him excitedly.…  Seguir leyendo »

Roman Ratushny (Hromadske International)

On June 9, Roman Ratushny was killed in battle near Izyum, not far from Kharkiv. He would have turned 25 in July.

Ukrainians have experienced death and destruction on a vast scale over the past three months. But the news of Ratushny’s death, which emerged days after his killing when troops recovered his body, has struck a chord. His loss confirms something that everyone had suspected: that this war is consuming the best of our people.

The Russian invasion prompted many Ukrainians to volunteer for the armed forces: midcareer professionals, managers and students as well as workers and farmers. At this stage of the war, the military is trying to ensure that the best of these recruits are being sent to the front lines — the smartest, the bravest and those with combat experience.…  Seguir leyendo »

Roman Vodianyk, chief doctor at the only remaining hospital in Severodonetsk. Photograph: Andrii Bashtovyy

“It’s the second month since Russia used all possible ammunition to shell the Luhansk region. Now they are gathering equipment, mobilising conscripts … The battle here [will] be the fiercest”, the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, told me when we met recently in eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s intentions are clear: the Kremlin calls its war against Ukraine the “special operation to free Donbas”. It wants some real gains to present at home before the anniversary of Russia’s victory in the second world war, on 9 May. After Russian troops failed to beat the Ukrainian military and occupy Kyiv and major towns such as Kharkiv, Moscow is concentrating on taking the parts of the Donbas that remain in Ukrainian hands.…  Seguir leyendo »

In Kharkiv, Ukraine, a man walks on March 6 in front of a building damaged by shelling during Russia's invasion. (Oleksandr Lapshyn/Reuters)

Ukrainians are enduring savagery. A friend from Kharkiv has left me a voice-mail message, describing how the Russian invaders are reducing the city to rubble: A shell killed dozens of people waiting in line for food. Bombs have been hitting nonmilitary buildings, even the zoo. The sorrow in his voice makes me tremble.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to invade Ukraine to topple the government, but now he’s trying to punish Ukrainian citizens with airstrikes and artillery barrages. That in itself is a reason to fight back. But the way we’re doing it gives me a measure of hope amid the bloodshed.…  Seguir leyendo »

In London, a sister remembers her brother killed on Ukraine's frontline. In Glasgow, a truck driver gets a call from his wife in Lviv: war has arrived in their homeland. In New York, a poet who fled Odessa contemplates his mother tongue. And in Kyiv, a journalist bunkers down for the long haul.

For the Ukrainian diaspora, Putin's war resonates deeply. We asked Ukrainians, expats and political experts from across the globe to weigh in. The views expressed in this commentary are their own.

The sister who lost a brother on the frontline

When my elder brother, Volodymyr, joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces, he explained his decision to me: "little one, don't you realize this is a European war.…  Seguir leyendo »

People stand in line to donate blood for the army at the Blood Service Center in Lviv, Ukraine, on Feb. 25. (Yuriy Dyachyshyn/AFP/Getty Images)

Russians and Ukrainians actually understand each other well. That is perhaps the biggest and saddest irony of this perverse, unnecessary war.

We know each other’s mentalities. We understand each other’s languages. We share a Soviet past. And yet this sense of familiarity underlines just how different our two countries are.

We have watched Russian President Vladimir Putin give an angry, hateful speech denying our existence as a country. We have also watched Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky address Russians in their language, explaining to people across the border that we have no quarrel with them, expressing the willingness to resolve our differences and lay Russian fears to rest.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy inspects Javelin anti-tank missiles during a visit to the Donetsk region of the country on Thursday. Photograph: EyePress News/Rex/Shutterstock

This week I had my first nightmare about war. In the dream, I woke up to find that Russia had attacked my home city of Kyiv: there was no internet connection, and no way of finding out what had happened.

I had this dream on Wednesday, the night on which – according to western intelligence – Russia was most likely to begin its attack on Ukraine. Over the last few months, we Ukrainians have of course considered various scenarios and contingency plans, but mainly we have kept calm. But when the US, the UK and dozens of other states evacuated their embassies from the capital, it felt different.…  Seguir leyendo »

A mother of one of the so-called Cyborgs, Ukrainian servicemen who died during defending Donetsk airport, touches his picture on a memory wall in Kyiv on Jan. 21. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images)

I’ve lost count of the number of calls and emails I’ve received from foreign correspondents this month. “What’s the mood like in Kyiv?” “Are there military drills in Kharkiv?” “Are people expecting help?” I do my best to respond patiently (though I can’t help feeling a bit irritated).

Ukrainians are getting on with life: returning from holidays, working and generally staying calm. There is no panic in the capital, which today looks like any European city. The nervous talk is coming almost exclusively from Washington, Geneva or Brussels.

Make no mistake, the threat of more than 100,000 Russian troops stationed near our borders is a matter of existential importance.…  Seguir leyendo »