https://www.voanews.com Voice of America is an international news and broadcast organization serving Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia, the Middle East and Balkan countries https://www.voanews.com/Content/responsive/VOA/en-US/img/logo.png https://www.voanews.com en 2026 - VOA 60 Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:46:50 -0400 Pangea CMS – VOA Kyiv — Irina, her husband and 4-year-old son hid in the cellar of their house in Chernihiv, north of Kyiv, for three weeks as intense fighting, including a tank battle, raged around them. “At first my son seemed to be coping okay,” she says. “But then with unrelenting stress, shelling and blasts, there was a deterioration — the boy started to become withdrawn. He became nervous. He started to stutter,” she says. Their escape from Chernihiv wasn’t gentle either. “We had to drive along a... https://www.voanews.com/a/psychiatrists-worry-about-ukraine-s-long-term-mental-health-challenges/6512527.html https://www.voanews.com/a/psychiatrists-worry-about-ukraine-s-long-term-mental-health-challenges/6512527.html Sat, 02 Apr 2022 13:15:00 -0400 Europewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Ternopil and Vinnytsia, Ukraine — The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the western Ukrainian town of Ternopil was full at lunch time — as it has been most days since Russia invaded Ukraine. “The cathedral is full of people praying for peace,” Archbishop Vasyl Semeniuk told me. But as I reported Thursday, the Greek-Catholic prelate can sound like a holy warrior: He sees Vladimir Putin’s army as an evil that must be overcome so it cannot again attack... https://www.voanews.com/a/reporter-notebook-an-apocalyptic-war-with-no-end/6511511.html https://www.voanews.com/a/reporter-notebook-an-apocalyptic-war-with-no-end/6511511.html Fri, 01 Apr 2022 15:46:33 -0400 Europewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Lviv / Vinnytsia, Ukraine — Yulia isn’t convinced Ukraine should give up any part of its territory to Russia — even if by doing so it could end the war. The 25-year-old from Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv is now living in a shelter in the western Ukrainian town of Lviv, and her life is on hold while the conflict rages. She fled Bucha as “there were bombardments and stuff like that. And a lot of times it was really scary.” Her mother went to Germany, but Yulia decided to remain in Ukraine... https://www.voanews.com/a/increasingly-confident-ukrainians-want-no-concessions-to-russia/6510101.html https://www.voanews.com/a/increasingly-confident-ukrainians-want-no-concessions-to-russia/6510101.html Thu, 31 Mar 2022 18:00:07 -0400 Ukrainewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) “Everyone is hoping for some kind of conspiracy at the top — that one of Vladimir Putin’s close associates or oligarchs will kill him,” says popular Russian blogger and longtime Kremlin critic Dmitry Chernyshev. “But it seems to me that will not be a solution,” he adds. Instead, Chernyshev, a 55-year-old writer and lecturer, is calling on Russians to join a National Resistance movement he’s setting up and is encouraging wide-ranging civil disobedience going well beyond street protests. He... https://www.voanews.com/a/popular-russian-blogger-calls-for-armed-resistance-sabotage-to-oust-putin/6506012.html https://www.voanews.com/a/popular-russian-blogger-calls-for-armed-resistance-sabotage-to-oust-putin/6506012.html Tue, 29 Mar 2022 08:22:23 -0400 Europewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Jeff Horenstein has seen his fair share of injury and death as an emergency room physician in Massachusetts — and ironically far more than working as a medical volunteer on the Polish side of the border across from the western Ukraine town of Lviv at a refugee reception camp run by NGOs at Medyka in south-east Poland. "Most people we see here are dehydrated or they’re elderly and want us to check them out and need reassurance; they are worried they are running low on their... https://www.voanews.com/a/reporter-s-notebook-tales-from-the-poland-ukraine-border-/6504453.html https://www.voanews.com/a/reporter-s-notebook-tales-from-the-poland-ukraine-border-/6504453.html Mon, 28 Mar 2022 07:10:37 -0400 Ukrainewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) WARSAW, POLAND — Western defense officials say Ukraine has been employing agile insurgency tactics to disrupt Russia's invasion, and in the suburbs northwest and east of Kyiv, to push their adversaries back.     Hitting and ambushing Russian forces behind the contact lines with fast-moving units, often at night, has proven among its most effective field tactics and is adding to the logistical missteps the Russians still have not been able to overcome, military strategists say. They... https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-tactics-disrupt-russian-invasion-western-officials-say-/6501513.html https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-tactics-disrupt-russian-invasion-western-officials-say-/6501513.html Fri, 25 Mar 2022 11:32:41 -0400 Ukrainewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) WARSAW, POLAND — Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian journalist who protested Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by bursting onto the set of a flagship television news show, says her colleagues at Kremlin-controlled TV Channel One are scared and she doesn't regret for one moment her action. The 43-year-old television journalist last week held up a banner behind the news anchor during a live broadcast denouncing the aggression in Ukraine and shouted, “stop the war.” On the banner she... https://www.voanews.com/a/journalists-at-russia-s-channel-one-scared-says-marina-ovsyannikova-/6499090.html https://www.voanews.com/a/journalists-at-russia-s-channel-one-scared-says-marina-ovsyannikova-/6499090.html Thu, 24 Mar 2022 08:34:07 -0400 Ukrainewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) WARSAW — Both Ukrainian and Russian leaders say some progress has been made in peace talks but striking a deal is fraught with peril, say observers. Some Western officials and independent observers are skeptical and worry Moscow isn’t negotiating in good faith and is using negotiations to restrain NATO from providing both offensive and defensive surface-to-air systems and other more sophisticated weapon systems to Ukraine or intensifying Western sanctions. Others are skeptical that even if... https://www.voanews.com/a/kyiv-and-moscow-say-talks-progressing-but-there-are-plenty-of-skeptics-/6497343.html https://www.voanews.com/a/kyiv-and-moscow-say-talks-progressing-but-there-are-plenty-of-skeptics-/6497343.html Wed, 23 Mar 2022 07:30:00 -0400 Ukrainewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Warsaw — With Russia’s ground invasion largely stalled and stuttering, a minority view is emerging among some Kremlin watchers that Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s days are numbered.   “Whatever Putin does, he does not look as if he can survive for long,” tweeted Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist and former economic adviser to the governments of Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine.  Aslund believes a major power struggle is already evident inside the Kremlin. Others who hazard that Putin’s... https://www.voanews.com/a/what-are-the-chances-of-a-kremlin-coup/6495941.html https://www.voanews.com/a/what-are-the-chances-of-a-kremlin-coup/6495941.html Tue, 22 Mar 2022 10:53:15 -0400 Europewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Warsaw, Poland — Forced civilian deportations from Ukraine’s besieged port town of Mariupol to Russia are “unconscionable,” U.S. officials said Sunday after authorities in Kyiv and Mariupol’s mayor accused Moscow of transporting thousands of people against their will. The claims are unverified so far but earlier this month Kyiv rejected an offer from Moscow to create “humanitarian corridors” allowing civilians to flee six heavily bombed Ukrainian cities when it emerged that Moscow expected... https://www.voanews.com/a/soviet-echoes-of-deportations-alarm-historians/6494391.html https://www.voanews.com/a/soviet-echoes-of-deportations-alarm-historians/6494391.html Mon, 21 Mar 2022 12:04:29 -0400 Ukrainewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Warsaw — Anhelina sat and prayed in the basement of her home in Bucha after Russian forces overran her small town north of Kyiv this month after fierce fighting. “There was no light, water, or gas. It was impossible to go out because they shoot. People were being shot around the house, which is a terrible sound, even scarier than the bombs,” said the mother of a three-year-old daughter. That day Russian soldiers had broken into her home and inspecting the mobile phones of her father and... https://www.voanews.com/a/life-under-russian-occupation-hunger-fear-and-abductions-/6494205.html https://www.voanews.com/a/life-under-russian-occupation-hunger-fear-and-abductions-/6494205.html Mon, 21 Mar 2022 09:18:02 -0400 Ukrainewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Warsaw — During their first attempt to rescue a group of orphans in eastern Ukraine, the shelling was so intense the battle-hardened former U.S. combat veterans had to give up. “We had to put them back in the shelter and come back 48 hours later. And then we got them, in the meantime, three of their teachers had been killed,” former Green Beret Jeremy Locke told VOA in an interview in Poland shortly before he was heading back in on another mercy dash to guide orphans in eastern and... https://www.voanews.com/a/no-place-for-a-kid-says-us-veteran-who-s-rescuing-ukraine-s-orphans-/6493259.html https://www.voanews.com/a/no-place-for-a-kid-says-us-veteran-who-s-rescuing-ukraine-s-orphans-/6493259.html Sun, 20 Mar 2022 11:18:29 -0400 Ukrainewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) WARSAW, POLAND — Russian military officials said Saturday that they fired hypersonic missiles for the first time in Ukraine to target what they said was an underground weapons storage site in the west of the country. Kinzhal missiles travel so fast, at Mach 9, they are meant to be able to evade detection by defense systems, and when announcing the missiles’ development in 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin described them as “invincible.” “The Kinzhal aviation missile system with... https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-claims-hypersonic-missile-use-in-attack-on-ukraine/6492246.html https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-claims-hypersonic-missile-use-in-attack-on-ukraine/6492246.html Sat, 19 Mar 2022 05:55:23 -0400 Europewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Warsaw — Using the same kind of rough street language he used 22 years ago when talking about rubbing out Chechen rebels even when they’re in their “outhouses,” Russian President Vladimir Putin midweek took aim at Russians who oppose his invasion of Ukraine, saying Russia should undergo “self-cleansing” and get rid of “bastards and traitors.” “The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and will simply spit them out like a gnat that... https://www.voanews.com/a/russian-refuseniks-endure-hostility-suffer-grief-but-say-impossible-to-stay-in-putin-s-russia-/6489347.html https://www.voanews.com/a/russian-refuseniks-endure-hostility-suffer-grief-but-say-impossible-to-stay-in-putin-s-russia-/6489347.html Thu, 17 Mar 2022 10:48:58 -0400 Europewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Warsaw — Russian warships bombarded targets near Odesa Wednesday morning, possibly as a part of a buildup to an attack on the Ukrainian port city. But some military strategists say Russian forces are struggling to hold territory they have seized and have suffered some serious reversals in fierce skirmishes elsewhere that will likely delay an assault on Odesa. Britain’s Defense Ministry in its daily update on the state of battle assessed that Russian forces are struggling to overcome... https://www.voanews.com/a/ukrainian-counterattacks-compound-russia-military-problem/6488338.html https://www.voanews.com/a/ukrainian-counterattacks-compound-russia-military-problem/6488338.html Wed, 16 Mar 2022 17:01:25 -0400 Europewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Warsaw — For the past few years, Russia’s disinformation apparatus has seemed unstoppable. With the adept planting of falsehoods and red herrings on social media platforms by troll factories, and then amplified by Russia’s official news outlets such as RT, the Kremlin time and again has been able to confuse issues, obfuscate facts and define false narratives, manipulating audiences which might be receptive, say Western officials and independent analysts. They have often expressed... https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-disinformation-playbook-ripped-apart/6486203.html https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-disinformation-playbook-ripped-apart/6486203.html Tue, 15 Mar 2022 11:23:53 -0400 Europewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Warsaw, Poland — Marina, a 34-year-old mother of a seven-year-old boy, waves a hand in what she thinks is the direction of Ukraine. “I have to stay near Ukraine, and my husband, that is where my heart is,” she says. “America, Britain, Spain, Italy, what would I do there without him,” she says, after I ask her whether she will leave Poland to settle somewhere else, if Russia’s war on her country drags on. It took Marina more than a day to reach the Polish border on the train from just west... https://www.voanews.com/a/reporter-s-notebook-the-future-is-here-/6484426.html https://www.voanews.com/a/reporter-s-notebook-the-future-is-here-/6484426.html Mon, 14 Mar 2022 09:11:27 -0400 Ukrainewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Warsaw, Poland — One of Ukraine’s biggest military training bases, located 25 kilometers from the Polish border in the west of the country, was struck by Russian missiles in an attack that left 35 people dead and 134 others injured, according to Ukrainian officials. The base at Yavoriv is only 60 kilometers from Lviv, a major hub for Ukrainian evacuees heading into Poland. It has also been used by NATO military instructors, but Ukrainian officials say they are still trying to establish... https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-mounts-missile-strike-near-polish-border-/6482835.html https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-mounts-missile-strike-near-polish-border-/6482835.html Sun, 13 Mar 2022 08:23:52 -0400 Ukrainewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Warsaw — A massive Russian armored column that’s been at a standstill for days north of Kyiv has been dispersed on three sides of the Ukrainian capital, prompting fears the deployment is a prelude to a redoubled offensive.  American defense officials say the Russian forces have moved 5 kilometers nearer to Kyiv, and artillery has taken up what are described as firing positions. The movement coincides with further military developments, including the shelling for the first time of the... https://www.voanews.com/a/russian-forces-reposition-in-possible-prelude-for-kyiv-offensive/6480782.html https://www.voanews.com/a/russian-forces-reposition-in-possible-prelude-for-kyiv-offensive/6480782.html Fri, 11 Mar 2022 11:13:34 -0500 Europewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer) Warsaw — Russian officials have been shifting their explanations in the past two days about why their forces struck a maternity hospital in the besieged Ukrainian seaport of Mariupol, one of more than a dozen health care facilities to have been attacked since Russia launched its invasion of its neighbor. Midweek, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a news agency that Russian forces “do not fire on civilian targets.” Later, as international criticism over the bombing mounted, Peskov... https://www.voanews.com/a/targeting-of-ukraine-hospitals-recalls-russia-s-syria-campaign/6480644.html https://www.voanews.com/a/targeting-of-ukraine-hospitals-recalls-russia-s-syria-campaign/6480644.html Fri, 11 Mar 2022 09:10:22 -0500 Europewebdesk@voanews.com (Jamie Dettmer)