Russian and Ukrainian communists who in 1919 mapped out the border between Ukraine and Russia took as their starting point the former Russian empire’s provincial boundaries.
A woman votes in the controversial referendum in Donetsk, Ukraine on Sept. 27, 2022.
Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
While some parts of eastern Ukraine have been under partial Russian control since 2014, other sections continue to fight back. Most residents overall have said they don’t want to be part of Russia.
‘Kherson is Ukraine’: a show of support for the counteroffensive that aims to push Russian troops out of the southern region.
ZUMA Press Inc/Alamy Stock Photo
The prosecution and death sentences handed out to two British and one Moroccan national fighting alongside Ukrainian troops contravenes the Geneva Conventions.
Britons Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner with Moroccan Brahim Saadoun, who were captured after the siege of the the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.
Image taken from footage of the Supreme Court of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic
The two Britons have rights under the laws of war. It’s not clear they are being respected.
Many Ukrainians returned home after fleeing the Russian invasion, including this family that arrived on April 12, 2022, in Lviv, Ukraine, from refuge in Poland.
Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
A young woman in Lviv, Ukraine, writes about fleeing Russian aggression not once, but twice, since 2014 and explains the fierce desire to stay in her home country – a desire shared by many.
Putin resembles more a Russian ultranationalist with a shaky grasp of history than a pragmatic master strategist. The West must assume his ambitions are loftier than ever before.
The Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine do not qualify as states under international law, but Russia is reinterpreting those norms for its own purposes.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, right, signed decrees recognizing the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics on February 21, 2022.
Alexei Nikolsky/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS via Getty Images
Russia sent troops to two Moscow-allied breakaway regions in Ukraine, after President Vladimir Putin recognized the regions’ independence. Five stories provide background to the growing conflict.
Volodymyr Zelensky: ready to make concessions.
Stepan Franko/EPA
The US is making common cause with Ukraine, but national security concerns are affecting the human rights of the most vulnerable trying to flee the fighting.
The funeral of a serviceman in Independence Square, Kiev.
EPA/Sergey Dolzhenko
The Ukraine ceasefire agreement struck in Minsk will come as a relief to the increasingly desperate residents who live along the front lines in the Ukrainian Donbas. But even though the document was signed…
A protest in front of the Ministry of Defence in Kiev.
EPA/Roman Pilipey
In recent weeks, eastern Ukraine’s Russian-backed rebels have won several military victories on the battlefield in the Ukrainian Donbas. First they captured the virtually destroyed Donetsk airport, then…
The aftermath of shelling in Mariupol.
EPA/Sergey Vaganov
On January 24, pro-Russian rebel forces in eastern Ukraine launched missiles into Mariupol, a southern Ukrainian city south of Donetsk on the Sea of Azov. The attack killed 30 people and wounded 97, and…
Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) leader, Alexander Zakharchenko.
EPA/Alexander Ermochenko
Over the past few days, Ukraine has taken a significant turn for the worse. Fighting between rebels and government forces has intensified, the civilian death toll has increased, and the war of words between…
Associate Professor of Instruction in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, Affiliate Professor at the Institute for Russian, European, and Eurasian Studies, University of South Florida