Ukraine At War

Oleg Kashin, the prominent Russian blogger forced into exile in Europe after brutal attacks on him in his homeland, has an article at the independent web site slon.ru which is being avidly discussed on Russian social media. Titled “From Crimea to the Donbass: The Adventures of Igor Strelkov and Aleksandr Boroday,” the piece explores the […]

With only one week until presidential elections Ukraine, much is at stake but little is known about what to expect. So much attention has focused on what Russian President Vladimir Putin might do, on day-to-day attempts by Russian-backed separatists to take over administrative and security buildings in southeastern Ukraine, and on efforts by Ukrainian forces […]

Staunton, May 18 – Using subversion, Vladimir Putin has not been able to split Ukraine, to take control over Kharkhiv, Mykolayev, or Odessa, or create “’a Novorossiya,’” and that consequently, “without a massive Russian intervention,” he will succeed in detaching only Donetsk and Luhgansk and those only temporarily, according to a Moscow commentator. But what […]

Sometimes in the course of reporting on a story, a journalist makes an error in judgment, accidentally walks into a trip wire and sets off a signal flare (so to speak) alerting viewers that his version of events is unreliable. In his reporting on the Ukraine crisis, RT’s Graham Phillips has done just that: literally […]

Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. An interactive map of the situation: View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For links to individual […]

Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. An interactive map of the situation: View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For links to individual […]

Staunton, May 18 – Despite a ban on any demonstrations by the Russian occupation authorities and a decision by the Milli Mejlis not to hold a mass commemoration lest it become the occasion for a Russian provocation, thousands of Crimean Tatars have assembled in their homeland today to mark the 70th anniversary of their deportation […]

Staunton, May 17 – The head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic told a press conference in that Ukrainian region’s capital today that “a single command” prepared the pro-Russian operations in Crimea and in other parts of Eastern Ukraine, acknowledging that he personally had “worked in Crimea” but refusing to say just whose project this […]

Staunton, May 17 Even though the issue of relations between Russians and migrant workers has largely disappeared from the Moscow media because of the Ukrainian crisis, it has not gone away and indeed may be more explosive than it was precisely because of the kind of violence that has taken place in eastern Ukraine. In […]

Staunton, May 17 – Many arguments about Ukraine have become a battle of analogies where advocates of various outcomes do so less by talking about what conditions are actually like in that country than by suggesting analogies with countries which also have significant regional tensions. One such case is an exchange between two commentators who […]