Presidency of Ukraine/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — As tens of thousands of invading Russian troops and tanks thundered across his nation’s border in February 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy received an offer from the United States to evacuate him and his family out of the country.
But in the biggest moment of his yet budding political life, with a world superpower bearing down with brutal force, Zelenskyy rejected the offer to escape, replying, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
A year later, he and his country are still standing strong, forcefully pushing back against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive campaign to pummel Ukraine into submission.
Zelenskyy set the defiant tone for his country just hours after the war started. He shed his suits and ties for military fatigues and combat boots, and boldly posted a selfie video message to the frightened citizens of his nation. Standing on a street outside his office in the capital city of Kyiv, members of his cabinet and military advisors at his side, the then-44-year-old Zelenskyy stared into the camera and announced he and his leadership team were staying put.
“We are all here defending our independence and we are defending our country and we will keep doing that,” he said.
It was a dramatic rallying cry that echoed around the world and began the transformation of Zelenskyy into a wartime hero with some admirers even comparing him to Great Britain’s Winston Churchill standing up to Nazi Germany during World War II.
At the time of the Feb. 24 invasion, few world leaders and military historians gave Ukraine much of a chance against Russia’s overwhelming ability to strike from the ground and air. However, as missiles decimated Ukrainian cities, destroying residential buildings, hospitals and schools, Ukraine’s ragtag forces — armed with Soviet-era tanks, guns and aircraft — defied the odds and mobilized a stiff resistance, sending the Kremlin a resounding early message that it was in for more of a slugfest than a swift takeover.
Unlikely war hero
A former comedian best known for his TV show in which he portrayed a high-school history teacher who is unexpectedly elected president of Ukraine, Zelenskyy was voted the country’s real president in 2019, running as an anti-establishment candidate. Initially, he was widely viewed by critics and the media as a weak leader, unable to crack down on government corruption even in his own administration despite his campaign promises to do so.
Three years into his presidency, a poll taken by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 62% of Ukrainians didn’t want him to seek reelection.
In 2014, Russia easily annexed Ukraine’s strategic Crimea peninsula and the Donbas region in the eastern part of the country. As the Kremlin began its threats to invade its neighbor again in late 2021, the odds were heavily in favor of Putin’s forces mowing down any resistance from Ukraine’s military.
As Russia’s threats grew louder, another poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 53% of Ukrainians believed Zelenskyy wouldn’t be able to defend the county against a full-scale invasion.
But as the war unfolded, Zelenskyy quickly proved the polls and his critics wrong.
By refusing to flee Ukraine when the going got tough, Zelenskyy used social media and daily addresses to rally his troops, citizens and world leaders to help Ukraine in its fight.
In March 2022, Zelenskyy gave a livestream address to the U.S. Congress, stressing the importance of uniting the free world against Russian aggression, saying, “I call on you to do more.”
“Remember Pearl Harbor? … Remember September 11?” Zelenskyy asked. “Our country experiences the same every day right now.”
An early supporter of Ukraine, the United States has sent the country more than $50 billion in military and humanitarian assistance. At least 46 other countries, including members of NATO, have contributed another $66 billion in humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine, including air defense systems, grenade launchers, mortar rounds, missiles and state-of-art tanks.
As a result, Ukrainian troops have pushed back against their Russian foes, even prompting them to retreat from several major battles. In September, Zelensky announced that Ukrainian troops had liberated more than 2,300 square miles of the country from the Russians.
“Certainly, since the beginning of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, we’ve seen the Ukrainians demonstrate a remarkable adaptability and their ability to use their warfighting capabilities to great effect,” U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said during a Pentagon news conference in September.
Ryder added, “I think if anyone was surprised, just based on the reports that we’ve seen in terms of the Russian military’s response, it was probably the Russians.”
Man of the people
While Ukrainians have shown resilience, the carnage the country has witnessed has been immense. The U.N. High Commission for Human Rights has verified as of Feb. 12 a total of 7,199 civilian deaths attributed to the war, with more the 400 children among the dead.
Many of the communication skills Zelenskyy uses to rally national and global support are the same that made him a successful comedian. He frequently travels to devastated villages to mourn the dead and to meet with survivors, stressing their common fight.
In December, Zelenskyy traveled outside Ukraine for the first time since the war began, flying to Washington and becoming the first foreign leader since Churchill to give a wartime address to Congress. During his speech, Zelenskyy thanked members of Congress for their support and said, “Your money is not charity. It is an investment in global security and democracy.”
This week, President Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine and visited with Zelenskyy, reinforcing the support of the United States in Ukraine’s fight. He also announced $500 million in additional military aid.
“One year ago, the world was bracing for the fall of Kyiv,” Biden said in a speech Tuesday in Warsaw, Poland. “Well, I have just come from a visit to Kyiv, and I can report that Kyiv stands strong. Kyiv stands proud. It stands tall. And most importantly, it stands free.”
(NEW YORK) — One year ago, with Ukraine’s borders surrounded by what seemed to be a superior military force, many U.S. officials and analysts predicted a swift Russian blitz to Kyiv.
But after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his more than 150,000 arrayed troops across the border, it soon became clear that a dual reassessment was in order: The Russian invaders were less potent than advertised, and the Ukrainians were unexpectedly stubborn and wily in the defense.
Some of the Russian troops weren’t even aware they were on a combat mission until Ukrainian bullets came cracking past them, according to U.S. officials. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces stalled a massive Russian supply convoy through direct attacks and by destroying a key bridge. Only one week into the invasion, Putin’s men were plagued with food and fuel shortages, morale running similarly low.
Kyiv stood.
“Putin assumed that Ukraine was an easy target, Putin assumed that Kyiv would easily fall, and Putin assumed that the world would stand by,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a speech in Brussels last week. “But the Kremlin was wrong on every count.”
Ukrainian forces were armed with more than grit.
They also had years of U.S. and NATO military training, plus American-made weapons, like anti-armor Javelins and anti-aircraft Stinger missiles. These made Russian vehicles vulnerable to ambush, and left Russian helicopter and jet pilots wary of flying over Ukrainian positions. Indeed, many airmen did not return from their sorties.
Despite astonishing losses of soldiers and vehicles, Putin has shown no inclination to end the conflict anytime soon. And despite its tenacity, Ukraine has also taken significant casualties, and is not able to produce enough of its own weapons and ammunition to keep up the fight.
Ukraine, after thwarting the advance on its capital, and later routing Russian forces from Kharkiv, now largely faces a battle of supply.
“When this war began, Russia had a larger population, a much bigger defense budget, a bigger military, bigger industrial base. So, this became an industrial war and a war of industrial bases,” said Seth Jones, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This is why Western industrial support has been so critical.”
A key question now is, despite massive military aid packages and a promise to send even more, could the U.S. strategy ultimately result, not in a Ukrainian victory, but a stalemate in a years-long war of attrition?
Impact of US military support
The U.S. has committed nearly $30 billion dollars in security assistance to Ukraine since the invasion began, and Austin has led the 54-nation “Ukraine Defense Contact Group” to help coordinate support from others.
That U.S. aid includes 160 American howitzers with a million artillery rounds, more than 100 million rounds of small-arms ammunition, 8,000 tank-killing Javelins, 109 Bradley fighting vehicles, secure communications equipment, body armor, and much more.
While expressing thanks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has consistently asked the West for more advanced weapons like long-range missiles and fighter jets.
The Biden administration has so far rejected some of these requests and been slow to entertain others.
It has nevertheless incrementally expanded the types of weapons it has helped procure for Ukraine as the war has progressed — from handheld launchers to sophisticated air-defense platforms, to armored vehicles and precision multiple-launch rocket systems.
There is some sense behind this incrementalism, according to Mick Mulroy, an ABC News contributor who served as a CIA officer and deputy assistant secretary of defense.
“We needed to balance to make sure that we didn’t draw this into a larger NATO-versus-Russia, World War III, scenario. We needed to balance that and we needed to see how effective the Ukrainians were going to be with the support we provided them,” Mulroy said.
By now the Ukrainians have proven they can quickly learn to make great use of advanced weapons, and the U.S. could be doing more to help them achieve victory, according to Mulroy.
Jones said if the U.S. wants Ukraine to succeed, and not just settle into stalemate, more is needed.
US too risk averse?
“The administration has done a good job, but I think it’s been sometimes too slow and too risk averse,” Jones said.
In June, the Pentagon announced the U.S. would send High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) with precision ammunition capable of hitting targets up to 50 miles away.
“Ukrainian forces are now using long-range rocket systems to great effect, including HIMARS provided by the United States, and other systems from our allies and partners,” Austin said in July.
But so far, the administration has declined to send longer-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) ammunition for the HIMARS. With a range of 190 miles, ATACMS would allow Ukraine to reach out nearly four times further than with the currently provided rockets.
“It’s our assessment that they don’t currently require ATACMS to service targets that are directly relevant to the current fight,” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told reporters in August.
Jones disagrees.
“In a ground war, longer range actually ends up being really helpful. So I think we’re at a point right now for the Ukrainians to try to take back additional territory … continuing to give them assistance is helpful. But what they also need now, and what the U.S. has not been willing to give, is long-range fires, like the ATACMS,” he said.
That extra reach would be especially important in retaking Crimea, according to Mulroy.
“If they have any chance to take in Crimea, they’re going to have to reach pretty far in there,” he said.
The administration has changed course on some types of aid it originally wrote off as impractical, most notably Abrams tanks. For other items, such as large MQ-1C drones and F-16 fighters, which some experts say could make a difference in the fight, there’s no indication that’s being reevaluated.
While there are arguments to be made that money for fighter jets could be used to greater effect elsewhere, and that pulling Ukrainian pilots away from the war for a lengthy period of training might not be a worthwhile tradeoff, it’s harder to apply such concerns to sending longer-range missiles for the HIMARS Ukrainians are already trained on and have been using in combat for months.
Fear of escalation
A less-publicized reason for hesitance over sending ATACMS and other sophisticated weapons is fear of escalation between Russia and the West. It’s a fear the Kremlin has deliberately tried to inculcate.
In September, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned the U.S. would be crossing a “red line” were it to supply Ukraine with longer-range weapons.
While threatening language from Putin and his subordinates is concerning, it would not make sense for Russia to extend its aggression into NATO territory, according to Jones, who said, “They’re having enough problems right now in in Ukraine.”
“With an industrial base that’s stretched, with an army that can’t even defeat a second or third-rate power, the idea that they would expand this to include NATO countries … would be very irrational,” Jones added.
But Putin’s decision to invade in the first place was perhaps less than rational, and even if too conventionally depleted to match the U.S. and its allies, Russia still wields an awesome unconventional arsenal.
“The cloak has been pulled back — Russia is not a superpower, militarily, at all. But they have 6,000 nuclear weapons,” Mulroy said.
While Putin has not followed through on several previous threats, the prospect of Ukraine using long-range American missiles to hit targets across its border would likely be the greatest “red line” test of the conflict so far.
Jones and Mulroy both believe Ukraine could put ATACMS to better use pushing Russian forces out of its territory than by striking the Russian mainland.
Either way, while a beleaguered Kyiv could be morally and strategically justified in deciding to hit the land of its aggressor, land which is being used to launch attacks on Ukraine and to supply the Russian war effort, such a move could have unintended consequences.
“I’m suggesting that we give them what they need to fight and repel them out of Ukraine, but not taking strikes in Russia, which could then basically shore up president Putin’s support,” Mulroy said.
The U.S. could also offer ATACMS on condition they only be used within Ukraine. Once the missiles were in Ukraine, the restrictions could always be loosened if the U.S. deemed necessary.
But ultimately, the goals of not upsetting Russia and of helping Ukraine defeat Russia’s invasion are incompatible — the most effective U.S. support for Ukraine will tend also to be the most at risk of angering Putin.
“I think the U.S. has to make a decision here about whether it helps Ukraine retake the territory that has been illegally taken through conquest and then annexed, or you’re going worry about not escalating with the Russians” Jones said.
What ‘victory’ means remains vague
The Biden administration has been vague when it comes to defining what victory means for Ukraine, and in stating the ultimate goal of U.S. aid.
America’s top general offered the following during a press conference in November:
“We will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes to keep them free, sovereign, independent, with their territory intact,” chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, said.
However, 10 minutes later during the same press conference, Milley said a military victory is not on the horizon:
“The probability of a Ukrainian military victory, defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine … the probability of that happening any time soon is not high, militarily,” he said. “It may be a political solution where, politically, the Russians withdraw. That’s possible. You want to negotiate from a position of strength.”
So far, neither Moscow nor Kyiv have shown any interest in voluntarily resolving the conflict or willingly ceding ground, preferring instead to adjudicate matters on the battlefield.
Mulroy hopes the West will “start equipping and supporting the Ukrainians to win, and not just ‘not lose’ — and that means aircraft, long-range fires, and developing a sustainable logistical pipeline that ensures no break in the support getting to the front lines.”
Jones also emphasized the importance of increasing aid for Ukraine, if victory is the goal.
As for escalation, Jones inverted the usual thinking, putting onus on the invaders.
“This is on the Russians in the end, and I would focus on supporting the Ukrainians and worry a little bit less about the Russians, who got themselves into this mess,” Jones said.
Biden and members of his Cabinet have said the U.S. will continue to support Ukraine “as long as it takes.”
But victory as Zelenskyy defines it — complete reclamation of all occupied territory, with Russian reimbursement for damages as well as long-term security guarantees — could take more than just prolonged support. More powerful support might be needed.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — In the basement of the Syayvo book store in Kyiv, hundreds of Russian language books stand piled, waiting to be pulped.
The books — ranging from everything between the classics of Russian literature, detective novels translated into Russian and Soviet-era textbooks — have been donated by Ukrainians who have turned away from Russian culture to embrace their own since the invasion last year.
They are set to be recycled and turned into Ukrainian language texts or other products, with all profits going to support the war effort, Nadia Kibenko, 32, the store worker who is handling the books, told ABC News. They have recycled 75 tons — around 150,000 volumes — since last July, she said.
As a child, Kibenko grew up in a Ukrainian speaking household but, more often than not, only had the choice to read in Russian.
“We do not burn books,” she said. “We just give them second life.”
The cultural battleground is not just symbolic. Witnesses from the Russian occupied territories say that, in schools, Ukrainian language books were thrown out and replaced by Russian ones, for a new curriculum which taught Putin’s view that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people.”
A report by PEN America published in Dec. 2022 said that “culture was on the frontlines” and that Putin “seeks not only to control Ukrainian territory, but to erase Ukrainian culture and identity.”
Olga Kozyrieva lives in the eastern settlement of Petropavlivka, Kharkiv region, which was occupied by Russian forces before being liberated in Ukraine’s counteroffensive in September last year.
“Many children came here for books in Ukrainian,” Kozyrieva told ABC News, standing in the ruins of a school that was shelled. “But during the occupation, the Russians brought their own books and they wanted to teach our children the Russian language and literature.”
Families there said they hid Ukrainian books in their homes — evidence that Russia was not just trying to take Ukrainians’ land, but turn it into Russia.
While other places like Petropavlivka will be in Russia’s sights as they launch a new offensive, it is one of the ironic consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine that, far from bringing the country back into Moscow’s sphere of influence, the invasion has proved a rallying cry to strengthen Ukrainians’ sense of national unity.
“I want to get rid of all the books in Russian and instead buy new ones in Ukrainian,” Oleksandra Kovalenko, a student in Kyiv who brought books to be recycled, told ABC News. “I’m disgusted with the Russian language because I’ve lost many relatives in this war. I want to throw it all away.”
Most Ukrainians are bilingual, but many have refused to speak Russian since the war began. Even those with Russian as their first language have taken up Ukrainian.
“People switched to Ukrainian because they believe it’s important,” Orysia Lutsevych, the head of the Ukraine Forum at the think tank Chatham House, told ABC News. “They want to break away from anything that has to do with this Russian world. Be it language, be it culture, be it even religious calendar.”
The significant proportion of Russian-speaking Ukrainians has led to misconceptions about Ukraine abroad, according to Dr. Marnie Howlett, a political scientist at the University of Oxford who has researched the growth of national identity in Ukraine.
“The International community have assumed that Ukraine has just continued to be this divided east versus west, a Russian [speaking] versus Ukrainian [speaking] country,” said Howlett. “And it’s really it’s so much more complex than that.”
The recycled Russian books in Kyiv are just one symbol of this. Things like street and place names have been changed and statues to Soviet leaders have been pulled down, angering the Kremlin. In 2019, a law was passed that required Ukrainian to be the official language of all government activities.
Since the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 , the process of “de-russification” — the term for the removal of Russian cultural influence from Ukraine — has accelerated since the invasion last year.
“There has been a desire from the bottom up to move away from that and Ukraine has really been working towards that,” Howlett said. “To Russia, that suggests the loss of the empire that once was.”
“Now you, the Russian occupiers, are creating this problem. You are doing everything to make our people stop speaking Russian themselves. Russia itself is doing everything to ensure that de-russification takes place on the territory of our state,” President Volodomyr Zelenskyy said in an address one month after the full scale invasion.
On the monument formerly known as the Friendship Arch in the capital, built to commemorate the close ties between Ukraine and Russia under the USSR — a crack has now been painted to symbolize that break. It too has been renamed — and is now known as the “Arch of Freedom” for the Ukrainian people.
Since the invasion, Ukrainians who may have felt closer affinity with Russia in the past have been forced to choose — particularly in the face of atrocities committed by occupying forces that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris recently declared were “crimes against humanity.”
“In the east and south, where there was always a stronger connection to Russia, people are fighting back to protect their existence and their existence within the borders of Ukrainian nation,” Lutsevych said. “Since Russia invaded, that ambivalence became impossible.”
Not all Ukrainians may agree. Ties with Russian culture still run deep in many parts of the country. But with the path to peace a long way off and as the full-scale war passes the first-year mark, Ukrainians are largely united around President Zelenskyy’s vision for a modern Ukraine, polls reported in the country suggest, a vision that looks to the West and Europe as the future and away from its past with Russia.
“If there is a threat to your identity, you start defending it and appreciating it,” Lutsevych said. “The moment the other attacks you like has happened in Ukraine, you suddenly become this porcupine, with a cultural shield.”
(NEW YORK) — More than 8 million refugees from Ukraine have been recorded across Europe as of Tuesday, nearly one year since Russia invaded, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
Poland has seen the largest numbers of Ukrainian refugees, estimated to be around 1.5 million, followed by other European countries like the Czech Republic and Slovakia, due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Celina Kretkowska-Adamowicz, director of program operations for Save the Children in Poland, told ABC News that, as of now, “the biggest need is financial support.”
Save the Children has been operating in Poland since February 2022, when Ukraine was first invaded, Kretkowska-Adamowicz said.
Though people are still crossing the border from Ukraine to Poland, “now, the situation is more stable, the movement of people is also more stable, and the needs are more longer-term,” she said.
Kretkowska-Adamowicz said “child protection, education and the provision of emergency assistance through cash voucher[s]” are among some of those longer-term needs that Save the Children has been helping with.
Some refugees have also attempted to move back to Ukraine, Kretkowska-Adamowicz said.
“But then after a while, they find out that they are not able to live like this,” she said, “and then they decide to go back to Poland.”
Of the more than 17,000 people surveyed by the U.N. from October 2022 to February that have been displaced because of the war in Ukraine, 24% said they have visited home at least once since they initially left.
Some of the top reasons listed included visiting relatives and obtaining documents.
“Many people from Poland go to Ukraine for a short period of time, for example, to see their family or to attend to some formal issues,” Kretkowska-Adamowicz said.
Others, however, do the opposite, Kretkowska-Adamowicz said.
“There are many cases of people who are crossing to Poland, for example, just to do shopping on the Polish side and then they come back to Ukraine,” she said.
As more refugees are settling in host countries, education and mental health have become more prominent issues, she added.
“Access to inclusive and equal education is difficult,” Kretkowska-Adamowicz said. “We are seeing as well, now, increasing issues related to mental health.”
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Feb. 21, 2022, that he had recognized two Russian-backed separatist areas in eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, as independent states.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy followed the announcement by saying that Ukraine had cut diplomatic ties with Russia. Putin then gave a speech on Feb. 24, 2022, announcing he would launch a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Minutes after the announcement, explosions could be heard in Kyiv. What followed was a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with thousands of troops crossing the country’s borders.
Russia seizes a quarter of Ukraine
In the early days of the invasion, it seemed as though Russians forces would enter the capital, Kyiv, after reaching the edge of the city very quickly.
Russia had planned to topple the Ukrainian government within days of the invasion, but Putin and other officials had underestimated the strength of Ukraine’s resistance.
By March 19, Russian troops had seized about a quarter of Ukraine’s territory.
Western countries respond
The U.S. and its allies announced a wave of sanctions and trade controls against Russia in response to the invasion, along with its recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as “independent” states.
Sanctions were placed on Russia’s biggest banks, Russian elites and their families. The imposed sanctions restricted Russia’s ability to raise funds by adding additional prohibitions related to new debt and equity of major Russian state-owned enterprises and large privately owned financial institutions.
A turning point
At the beginning of April, it became clear that Russia lacked the forces it needed to take over Kyiv.
Russian forces retreated and abandoned nearly all the territory they had taken in the north of the besieged capital. As Russian troops retreated, they left behind a trail of horrors, which many observers would call human rights abuses.
Mass graves containing hundreds of murdered civilians were discovered in Bucha, a town outside Kyiv.
By late May, Russia was devastating Mariupol in the south, a city that became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance. After over three months of siege, Ukrainian troops were forced to surrender the city.
US supplies long-range weapons
By June, after retreating from Kyiv, Russia switched its focus to capturing eastern Ukraine, including the Donbas region.
What followed was a grueling artillery war, with Russia using its technical advantage and firepower to grind forward as Ukraine was battling to hold the line. The U.S. in July began to supply Ukraine with long range missile launchers, including U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems.
Russia also began struggling with shortages of men and ammunitions, as Ukraine appeared to be taking control of the war.
Another turning point
A crucial turning point came in September, when Ukraine launched a spectacular counteroffensive in the northeast near Kyiv, collapsing Russia’s lines and liberating thousands of square miles of territory.
Some military analysts said the route Ukraine took put an end to Russia’s ability to go on the offensive. Russia was fighting to just hold on to the areas it has already captured.
By the fall, faced with the risk of full defeat, Putin declared a partial mobilization calling up 300,000 men. He began making threats about striking Ukraine with nuclear weapons.
On Sept. 30, desperate to hold on to Russia’s war gains, Putin declared that he had annexed four Ukrainian regions: Zaporizhia, Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson. But Russia didn’t at the time fully control any of them. It lost the capital of one within weeks of Putin’s declaration.
The U.S. and other western allies announced another wave of sanctions in response.
Ukraine liberates Kherson
In November Ukraine liberated Kherson, one of the regions Putin had annexed. Russian troops were forced to withdraw.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met days later with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Cambodia.
The success in Kherson “is a testament once again to the remarkable courage of the Ukrainian armed forces, the Ukrainian people, as well as the strong support that Ukraine has from countries around the world,” including the U.S., Blinken said ahead of their talks.
Russia changes its strategy
By the fall, Russia appeared to shift its strategy as it launched a massive campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Human rights groups would accuse Russia of attempting to freeze Ukrainians as winter approaches.
There were Russian barrages of cruise missiles and Iranian supplied kamikaze drones causing nationwide blackouts in Ukraine.
Ukraine continued throughout the winter to call on Western countries to provide it with better air defense and more weapons.
By December, the war was focused on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut as Russia brought in thousands of troops into the battle.
First Russian gain in months
In January, Russia made its first gain in months, capturing the small town of Soledar.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Jan. 25 agreed to give Ukraine heavy tanks, clearing the way for Germany and other European allies to do the same for the first time.
At the one-year mark
As the first anniversary of the invasion approached, Biden arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced trip. He met with Zelenskyy and other high-ranking officials, before announcing an additional $500 million in aid.
Putin the next day, on Feb. 21, 2023, announced during his state-of-the-union address in Moscow that he had suspended the key U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty, opening the possibility for new nuclear tests.
Ukraine has liberated nearly 30,000 square miles of its territory since the Russian invasion began. But Putin appears to be preparing Russia for a long war.
(LONDON) — As tens of thousands of Russian troops lined up along Ukraine’s eastern and northern borders for “military exercises” last February, some international observers warned that Russia was about to do the unthinkable.
President Joe Biden had declassified intelligence in the weeks prior that showed an attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty was imminent. That intel was shared with allies, in an attempt to rally support and to stop the war, but the effort proved unsuccessful. The invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022.
“Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its Allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way,” Biden said as troops crossed the border. “The world will hold Russia accountable.”
The following four seasons have seen some of the bloodiest fighting on European soil in generations. Tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian troops have been killed. And Ukrainian civilians have been terrorized by missiles aimed at energy infrastructure, city centers and apartment buildings.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who allowed Putin’s troops to amass in his country prior to the invasion, told local media in the days before the “special military operation” began that it would take just a few days for Russian troops to take over the Kyiv, the capital.
But Ukrainian forces have blunted Russian advances on multiple fronts, defending their country against a military that had been expected to be better trained, more modern and more powerful. And a year of war in Europe has helped solidify international alliances, with NATO members maintaining their own united front.
“You know, one year later, Kyiv stands and Ukraine stands. Democracy stands,” Biden said on Monday, after arriving by train in Kyiv.
His presence in the besieged capital amounted to one of the clearest symbols yet of the West’s dedication to stopping Russian aggression.
“The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you,” he said.
But Putin has appeared unwavering in his resolve. He spoke in Moscow on Tuesday, saying in a state-of-the-union speech that he’d attempted to reason with the West. He said he’d been forced into the war.
“We are not at war with the people of Ukraine,” he said, adding, “They became a hostage of their regime and their Western masters.”
The Russian leader has a deep appreciation for Russian history and has a singular focus: reconstituting a once-expansive Russian Empire, observers say. This invasion amounted to another in a series of attempts to piece together now-sovereign nations that at one point were linked under a Russian ruler.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be fixated on the idea of reviving Russia’s greatness through the conquest of new territories and thus extending his rule,” Olena Nikolayenko, a professor and Political Science chair at Fordham University, told ABC News.
This month marks both the nine-year anniversary of Putin’s invasion of Crimea, which he illegally annexed in 2014, and the first anniversary of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The ends to which he’d go in his mission to capture Ukraine have become clear in the last year.
International observers have documented a year of brutal killings by Russian forces, including the slaughter of civilians in towns like Bucha, Borodyanka and Mariupol. A campaign of missile attacks throughout Ukraine destroyed power stations, plunged much of Ukraine into darkness and targeted apartment buildings.
At least 7,199 civilians have been killed by Russian campaigns in the last year, the United Nations said earlier this month. Another 11,756 have been injured. The true figure may be much higher, perhaps double, U.N. officials said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday said Russia’s actions amounted to crimes against humanity, among the most severe crimes that can be prosecuted at The Hague. He detailed the “execution-style killings of Ukrainian men, women, and children; torture of civilians in detention through beatings, electrocution, and mock executions; rape” and other crimes.
“There can be no impunity for these crimes,” Blinken said.
Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking in Munich on Saturday, said that “there is no doubt, these are crimes against humanity.”
Tens of thousands of troops have also been killed, although the number of casualties reported by Ukraine and Russia differ from those supplied by international observers.
“We have to understand that information is a part of warfare — for at least 100 years, at least since World War I — so the fact that Ukraine and Russia are engaging in this, it’s not surprising,” Heidi Tworek, director of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at The University of British Columbia, told ABC News.
As the war has dragged on, U.S. and European allies have remained at a distance, offering aid, training and supplies. But earlier this month they authorized new weapons, including tanks, to be sent to Ukraine. Biden, on Tuesday, announced an additional $500 million in military assistance. Shipments of fighter jets may come in the future, if President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gets what he wants. He has — for the extent of the invasion — been seeking access to more powerful Western weapons.
But Putin has threatened to draw other countries further into the conflict if those military supplies keep coming. In his speech on Tuesday, he decried what he saw as Western intervention.
He also suspended a key U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty and threatened to restart nuclear tests. But even if Putin were to order a nuclear strike, it would be “highly unlikely” that his subordinates would follow through, Nikolayenko, the Fordham professor, said.
As the war enters its second year, Ukraine will no doubt continue seeking support from NATO allies.
“Putin assumes that the West has a short attention span,” Nikolayenko said. “If the West stops supporting Ukraine, Putin’s Russia will win, signifying the triumph of authoritarianism in world politics.”
Putin believes that he can win the war by exhausting both the Ukrainians the Western allies that are supplying them, said Arne Westad, a professor of history at Yale University.
“He is almost certainly wrong in this,” Westad said, “but that is his perspective.”
(NEW YORK) — Almost a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion into neighboring Ukraine, the two countries are engaged in a struggle for control of areas throughout eastern and southern Ukraine.
Putin’s forces pulled out of key positions in November, retreating from Kherson as Ukrainian troops led a counteroffensive targeting the southern port city. Russian drones have continued bombarding civilian targets throughout Ukraine, knocking out critical power infrastructure as winter sets in.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Feb 22, 2:30 AM EST
US believes Russia held failed ICBM test as Biden visited Ukraine
The United States believes that Russia carried out a test launch of an intercontinental missile on Monday that appeared to have failed, a U.S. official said.
Russia notified the U.S. ahead of the SARMAT ICBM launch, per agreements said the official.
The failed test launch would have taken place on the day President Joe Biden arrived in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on an unannounced trip, as he made his way to Poland to meet with NATO allies and to give a speech marking a year of war.
Ukrainian officials on Sunday publicly claimed Russia was preparing to stage large scale nuclear exercises including a launch to coincide with Biden’s trip.
Feb 21, 6:46 AM EST
Putin suspends US-Russia nuclear treaty
Russia has suspended the New START nuclear arms treaty with the United States, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
But he emphasized that Russia was not leaving the treaty yet, only suspending its participation in it for the time-being.
He blamed the suspension on the West, saying relations had degraded and that it was impossible currently to allow American inspections of Russian strategic nuclear sites.
Putin’s decision was announced on Tuesday as he gave an annual state-of-the-union speech in Moscow, days ahead of the one-year anniversary of the invasion into Ukraine.
He also accused the United States of considering restarting nuclear bomb tests and threatened that Russia would hold them too if that happened.
That will be interpreted as a veiled threat in relation to the war in Ukraine — experts have feared Russia might conduct a nuclear bomb test to intimidate Kyiv and its Western allies. Putin ordered Russia’s military to prepare the possibility to hold a test.
“Some actors in Washington are thinking about testing nuclear weapons,” he said. “The defense ministry and RosAtom must prepare also to conduct nuclear tests in case of necessity. But Russia will not conduct it first.”
Feb 21, 4:41 AM EST
Putin opens Moscow speech on ‘historic events’
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday opened his state of the union speech in Moscow with familiar touchstones, including ridding the world of Nazism and liberating Ukraine’s Donbas region.
He said of his Ukrainian invasion that the “historic events will determine the future of our country … each of us is bound by a huge responsibility.”
And he said he sought an “open dialogue” with the West, but also blamed Western countries and Ukraine’s leaders for holding the country’s people “hostage.”
“The United States and NATO have been rapidly deploying their bases and biolabs at the borders of our country,” he said.
He said Russia tried to settle the conflict in the Donbas region by peaceful means, adding that the West’s commitment to peace turned out to be “fraud” and a “cruel lie.”
Putin said they were open to dialogue with the West and were open to an equal system of security, but “in response we were getting dishonest answers” and specific actions to expand NATO and deploy new anti-missile systems in Europe. He said that “the whole planet is dotted” with U.S. bases.
Feb 20, 12:01 PM EST
US announces new $460 million worth of weapons for Ukraine
The Pentagon announced a new presidential drawdown of security aid for Ukraine valued at up to $460 million on Monday.
This package will include four Bradley Infantry Fire Support Team vehicles, HIMARS ammunition, artillery and mortar rounds, air surveillance radars and more.
President Joe Biden hinted at the new supplies in a press conference from Kyiv on Monday, also saying he would be announcing new sanctions “against elites and companies that are trying to evade sanctions and backfill Russia’s war machine” later this week.
-ABC News’ Matt Seyler
Feb 20, 5:39 AM EST
Biden in Kyiv says Putin was ‘dead wrong’
U.S. President Joe Biden said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “dead wrong” when he started the war in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
“When Putin launched his invasion nearly one year ago, he thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided,” Biden said in a statement. “He thought he could outlast us. But he was dead wrong.”
The White House released the statement from Biden as he made an unannounced visit to the war-torn country, arriving in Kyiv on Monday morning.
“As the world prepares to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, I am in Kyiv today to meet with President Zelenskyy and reaffirm our unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,” Biden said.
“Today, in Kyiv, I am meeting with President Zelenskyy and his team for an extended discussion on our support for Ukraine. I will announce another delivery of critical equipment, including artillery ammunition, anti-armor systems, and air surveillance radars to help protect the Ukrainian people from aerial bombardments,” he continued. “And I will share that later this week, we will announce additional sanctions against elites and companies that are trying to evade or backfill Russia’s war machine. Over the last year, the United States has built a coalition of nations from the Atlantic to the Pacific to help defend Ukraine with unprecedented military, economic, and humanitarian support — and that support will endure.”
Biden added: “I also look forward to traveling on to Poland to meet President Duda and the leaders of our Eastern Flank Allies, as well as deliver remarks on how the United States will continue to rally the world to support the people of Ukraine and the core values of human rights and dignity in the UN Charter that unite us worldwide.”
Feb 20, 5:21 AM EST
Biden makes surprise visit to Ukraine
U.S. President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to war-torn Ukraine on Monday, arriving in Kyiv as Washington signals its ongoing support ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Biden’s visit came ahead of a planned meeting with NATO allies in Poland. He is expected to give a speech at the Royal Castle Arcades in Warsaw on Tuesday evening to offer an appraisal of international support during the first year of the war and to address “how we will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement earlier this month.
Biden also plans to meet in Poland with leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of eastern NATO allies formed in 2015 in response to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a dramatic visit to the United States in December, his first known international trip since the Russian invasion began in February 2022. Zelenskyy met with Biden at the White House in Washington, D.C., before addressing members of U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill.
Feb 19, 1:03 PM EST
Russia planning nuclear exercises to disrupt Biden’s Europe visit, Ukrainian military says
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency has accused Russia of planning to stage “large-scale nuclear exercises” to coincide with President Joe Biden’s visit to Europe next week.
The GUR said Russia is preparing for test launches of nuclear capable missiles from land and sea, the agency said in a statement Sunday on its official Telegram channel.
The GUR said a nuclear armed submarine has been placed on the “highest level” of combat readiness and that strategic bombers have been moved to a base in Tambov, Russia.
The agency claimed the exercises are intended disrupt President Joe Biden’s European trip.
“Such actions of the military and political leadership of the Russian Federation, in particular, are an attempt to hinder Joe Biden’s visit to Europe, which is scheduled for February 20-22, through direct nuclear blackmail and to weaken international support for Ukraine,” the GUR statement said.
– ABC News’ Patrick Reevell
Feb 18, 11:41 AM EST
Harris meets with British, Finnish, Swedish PMs
Vice President Kamala Harris met with the British, Finnish and Swedish prime ministers before departing Munich on Saturday.
Amid concerns in Europe that Republican lawmakers could dampen U.S. aid to Ukraine, the Finnish prime minister, Sanna Marin, thanked Harris for saying U.S. support for Ukraine would persevere domestic political differences.
Both Marin and Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, spoke with hope about joining NATO. But in recent days, there have been signals from NATO, the Finnish and the Swedish that perhaps they will not join at the same time as they had hoped due to continued Turkish objections over Swedish membership.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Feb 17, 3:41 PM EST
White House previews Biden trip to Poland
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby provided a preview Friday of President Joe Biden’s upcoming trip to Poland, saying the president’s main message will be continued support from the United States in the face of Russian aggression.
“On Tuesday evening, local time, President Biden will deliver remarks in Warsaw on how the United States has rallied the world to support the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and democracy. President Biden will make it clear that the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine, as you’ve heard him say many times, for as long as it takes,” Kirby said of Biden’s major planned address.
“As we approach the one-year mark since this invasion, we can proudly say that our support for Ukraine remains unwavering and our alliances and our international coalition in support of Ukraine remain stronger than ever,” he added.
Biden is scheduled to arrive in Poland on Tuesday morning and meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda. On Wednesday, he’ll meet with leaders from the so-called Bucharest Nine –Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia — which are nine NATO countries in Eastern Europe.
Kirby was asked about Biden meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, or traveling anywhere besides Warsaw, like the border town of Rzeszow, but he shot down both ideas.
“There is no meeting with President Zelenskyy scheduled for the trip right now,” he said. “Right now, the trip is going to be in Warsaw.”
Feb 17, 2:11 PM EST
Harris meets allies amid pressure over Ukraine aid
Vice President Kamala Harris met with the leaders of France and Germany Friday as part of a U.S. diplomatic push in Munich to show strong, continued support for Ukraine.
Questions lingering over the leaders in Munich include how long the West can maintain its support for Ukraine –- amid declining public and political support at home –- and how Ukraine will withstand the expected Russian offensive.
A White House official said that at the meetings, the vice president planned to “recognize the courage and resilience shown by the people of Ukraine; reaffirm the support of American people for Ukraine; commend the international community on the historic actions taken since February 2022; celebrate Transatlantic unity and clarity of purpose; reaffirm our security commitments to our European allies; and condemn Russia’s continued illegal and brutal actions while calling for accountability and justice.”
She also planned to discuss “relations with China and actions to address the climate crisis,” the official said.
Feb 17, 1:20 PM EST
Belarus ready to make Russian attack planes, president says at meeting with Putin
Belarus is ready to make Russian attack planes, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
“Belarus has been making up to a thousand components for MC-21 and Superjet 100 planes. There used to be repair plants, but now they also make component parts,” Lukashenko said.
“We are even ready to make it in Belarus with a little support from Russia,” Lukashenko said.
Feb 16, 5:28 PM EST
Ukrainian vice prime minister tells remaining civilians in Bakhmut to evacuate
Vice Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk called on the roughly 6,000 civilians still in Bakhmut to evacuate “immediately.”
Officials said they don’t want the people still in the city to put themselves and their children at risk and don’t want them to interfere with the Ukrainian army. Five civilians were killed and nine others were injured on Thursday, according to the vice prime minister.
“Frankly speaking, I am very surprised that 6,000 civilians are still working there,” Vereshchuk said in a statement.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Feb 16, 3:25 PM EST
Belarus will fight alongside Russia if it is attacked, president warns
Belarus would only join the war in Ukraine, fighting alongside Russia, if it is attacked, President Alexander Lukashenko told state-run Belta news agency.
“We don’t want a war. And in no case are we going to send our troops into the territory of Ukraine. Unless you commit aggression against the territory of Belarus from there. Here is my answer. It was given a long time ago,” Lukashenko said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Lukashenko’s threat in an interview with the BBC.
“I hope [Belarus] won’t join [the war],” he said. “If it does, we will fight and we will survive.”
Allowing Russia to use Belarus as a staging post for an attack again would be a “huge mistake,” he added.
Russian forces launched part of their full-scale invasion from Belarus 12 months ago. They drove south toward Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, but were fought back and made to retreat within weeks, after suffering heavy casualties.
Lukashenko is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky and Tanya Stukalova
Feb 16, 3:11 PM EST
Zelenskyy rules out territorial deal with Putin in BBC interview
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has ruled out giving up any of his country’s territory in a potential peace deal with Russia.
In a BBC interview to mark a year since Russia’s full-scale invasion, he warned conceding land would mean Russia could “keep coming back,” while Western weapons would bring peace closer.
However, he does believe Ukrainian forces can keep resisting Russia’s advance until they are able to launch a counteroffensive — although he repeated his calls for more military aid from the West.
“Of course, modern weapons speed up peace. Weapons are the only language Russia understands,” Zelensky told the BBC.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Feb 16, 12:13 AM EST
Russian strikes hit infrastructure in Lviv, Ukrainians shoot down eight Russian missiles: Officials
An infrastructure object was hit in Lviv in the early morning hours of Thursday, the head of the Lviv Regional Military Administration, Maksym Kozytskyi, said on Telegram.
There were no casualties, and the fire from the impact has since been put out, Kozytskyi said.
Six Kalibr missiles were also shot down over the Mykolaiv region, and two Kalibr missiles were shot down over the Kherson region overnight, Odesa Military Administration spokesman Serhii Bratchuk posted on Telegram.
All eight of the missiles were fired from a Russian ship in the Black Sea, Bratchuk said in the post.
Feb 15, 2:48 PM EST
6 ‘reconnaissance’ balloons shot down over Kyiv
Authorities in Kyiv are investigating who owns six balloons that were in Ukraine’s airspace and what the balloons were doing over Kyiv. The balloons were shot down by Ukrainian air defense.
After a preliminary assessment, authorities think the balloons had intelligence gathering equipment.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Feb 14, 11:43 AM EST
If Bakhmut falls, won’t have ‘strategic impact’ on Ukraine war: White House
White House spokesman John Kirby said during a briefing Tuesday that the U.S. could not “predict one way or the other” whether Bakhmut will fall to the Russians and if it does fall, “on what timeline.”
“We’re watching this every day, and it is certainly true that the Russians are continuing to make incremental progress there,” Kirby said. “Again, I can’t predict one way or the other whether it falls or it doesn’t fall or on what timeline. They have made incremental progress again in just the last 24, 48 hours.”
He added that the U.S. did not think Russia obtaining control of Bakhmut would have any “strategic impact” on either the overall war or even fighting in that part of the country.
The U.S. thinks Russia — and specifically the Wagner Group and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, which is doing much of the fighting for Bakhmut — wants to take over and benefit financially from gypsum and salt mines located in the area, Kirby said.
“Even if Bakhmut were to fall, it would not have a strategic impact on the overall war,” Kirby said. “I would go so far as to say it won’t even have, necessarily, a strategic impact on the fighting in that part of the country. We think one of the reasons why Prigozhin is so interested in Bakhmut is because there’s a gypsum mine there, and up in Soledar, there’s a salt mine. And it’s entirely possible that Mr. Prigozhin sees some economic benefit to him and his company to take Bakhmut and to take and hold Soledar.”
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Feb 11, 9:43 AM EST
US surveillance data ‘crucial’: Ukrainian commander
Ukrainian Lt. Gen. Serhiy Nayev told ABC News in an interview that the U.S. provides “surveillance data,” allowing the Ukrainian Armed Forces to more accurately pinpoint Russian targets within Ukraine’s borders.
“This help is crucial for us,” he said.
Nayev said he was in “constant contact” with American generals stationed in other parts of Europe. An exchange of data between the Ukrainians and Americans helped the Ukrainian military to pinpoint targets using US-supplied HIMARS rocket systems.
“This work goes perfectly in real time,” he said.
-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge, Dragana Jovanovic and Ale Pavone
Feb 10, 3:09 PM EST
Biden to visit Poland on eve of first anniversary of invasion of Ukraine
President Joe Biden will visit Poland on Feb. 20, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Biden will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda as well as the leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of our eastern flank NATO allies, and he’ll deliver remarks to mark the one-year anniversary, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday.
“President Biden will deliver remarks ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, addressing how the United States has rallied the world, to support the people of Ukraine, as they defend their freedom and democracy, and how we will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Jean-Pierre said.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Feb 10, 12:25 PM EST
Russian missile comes within 22 miles of Romanian border with Ukraine
Romania, a member of NATO, said Friday a Russian missile had come within 22 miles of its border but that it did not cross into the country’s territory, countering a claim made by the Ukrainian military.
“The Romanian Air Forces’ air surveillance system detected on Friday, February 10th, an aerial target launched by a Russian Federation’s ship, navigating in the Black Sea, nearby the Crimean Peninsula. The target is most likely a cruise missile, which flew over the air space of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova and reentered the Ukrainian air space without ever infringing Romania’s air space,” Romanian Defense Minister Angel Tîlvăr said in a statement Friday.
Ukrainian officials had said earlier Friday that two Russian missiles crossed into the airspace of Moldova and Romania before entering Ukraine and being directed at targets in the country.
“Several Russian missiles passed through the airspace of Moldova and Romania. These missiles are a challenge to NATO and collective security. This is terror that can and must be stopped,” Zelenskyy said Friday.
(WARSAW, Poland) — President Joe Biden will address the world on Tuesday from Warsaw, Poland, just days ahead of the one-year mark of Russia’s violent invasion of Ukraine.
“His remarks will speak specifically to the conflict in Ukraine, but they will also speak to the larger contest between those aggressors who are trying to destroy fundamental principles and those democracies who are pulling together to try to uphold them,” said national security adviser Jake Sullivan in an earlier call with reporters. “You will hear in this speech vintage Joe Biden. The president has believed passionately in the themes he will discuss tonight for decades.”
Sullivan said there will not be any new proposals to come out of his remarks.
Biden’s speech comes hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed Russia’s parliament, announcing the country would stop participating in the New START nuclear arms treaty with the U.S., the last remaining major arms control agreement between the two countries.
Putin said that Russia is not withdrawing from the treaty for now, but is suspending it, saying the war in Ukraine means it is not possible to allow American inspectors to visit Russian nuclear sites as agreed under the treaty.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, reacting to the announcement in Greece, told reporters the decision was “really unfortunate and very irresponsible, but we’ll be watching closely.”
While Putin didn’t mention Biden by name in is speech, it’s unclear if Biden will do the same.
In Warsaw, Biden met earlier with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday to discuss cooperation between Washington and Warsaw to aid Kyiv, particularly over Poland’s role as a key staging ground for military and financial aid flowing to Ukraine. Duda publicly thanked Biden for visiting Ukraine.
Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Monday, marking the first time an American president entered a warzone with no active U.S. military presence, where he saw first-hand some of the devastation caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
There, Biden told Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the U.S. would support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”
Biden first landed in Poland late Sunday, according to reporters traveling with him, then set off for to Ukraine for his roughly five-hour visit with Zelenskyy.
“One year later, Kyiv stands and Ukraine stands. Democracy stands,” Biden said alongside Ukraine’s leader on Monday. “The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”
The one-year mark of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine falls on Friday.
(LONDON, U.K) — Some of Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s books will be getting updates to be more inclusive, progressive and more acceptable to today’s readers, according to The Roald Dahl Story Company, which owns the rights to the books.
The celebrated children’s book author was the mastermind behind bestsellers such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “James and the Giant Peach,” “Matilda” and “The BFG.”
Phrases like “Mothers and fathers” in Dahl’s “Matilda,” first published in 1988, could be replaced with “parents” while some descriptions of “fat” characters could be edited or removed entirely. Description of women’s jobs are also subject to change.
“It’s not unusual to review the language used alongside updating other details,” a spokesman for The Roald Dahl Story Company, which was purchased by Netflix in 2020, told ABC News, adding, “Our guiding principle throughout has been to maintain the storylines, characters, and the irreverence and sharp-edged spirit of the original text.”
The British newspaper The Telegraph was first to report the changes.
The new development has sparked backlash from the literary community, with author Salman Rushdie writing on Twitter, “Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.”
PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel weighed in on the growing controversy, writing in part in a Twitter thread, “The problem with taking license to re-edit classic works is that there is no limiting principle. You start out wanting to replace a word here and a word there, and end up inserting entirely new ideas (as has been done to Dahl’s work).”
Author Matthew Dennison, who wrote the biography “Roald Dahl: Teller of the Unexpected,” added, “If you soften or make bland some of those choices of language then perhaps you undermine the badness of the so-called bad characters, which pulls the rug from under the plot. So I think it is perfectly possible that changes to Dahl’s wording actually somehow shrink the impact of the stories, make the stories less powerful.”
The language within Dahl’s works were reviewed in partnership with publisher Puffin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and Inclusive Minds, a collective with a mission to make children’s literature more inclusive, diverse and accessible. Inclusive Minds said the changes were “small and carefully considered,” according to The Associated Press.
Although his works have been revered and loved by young readers, fans have had to reckon with Dahl, who died in 1990, and his works over the years. The author made antisemitic remarks during his lifetime and his family and estate have apologized for them in the past.
(Afghanistan) — Like many teachers, Salma cares for children that aren’t biologically hers.
As co-director of the Salam Cafe in Kabul, Salma was able to provide a refuge for some of Afghanistan’s poorest children — tens of thousands of whom have been forced onto the streets, according to UNICEF estimates, where they often have to beg for money to help pay for food for their families.
Salam Cafe, a nonprofit that focuses on children in poverty, has been a safe place just for kids, where they can rest during the day, get a hot meal and have access to books.
The organization has also helped educate children as well as give their families tools to farm and provide for themselves.
And then the Taliban tore Salma away from her work. (ABC News agreed not to use Salma’s last name because of safety concerns.)
The Taliban, which took over Afghanistan’s national government after a major offensive in 2021, announced in late December that women can no longer work with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which encompass many key aid groups. Without their support, women and children are left hungry, cut off from employment and education.
Taliban officials cited “serious complaints” that some of the women working with the NGOs weren’t wearing the proper head coverings, according to the Associated Press.
The Taliban has also forbidden formal education for all girls after sixth grade, reversing a previous promise after seizing the national government.
Together, those restrictions effectively keep women and girls away from Salam Cafe. It is now run only by male staff.
“That day, when we closed the cafe for girl kids, all of them cried a lot. All the girls [were] so sad,” Salma said.
NGOs in Afghanistan provide most of the employment opportunities for women, according to Save the Children. Large organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross provide medical care while other organizations like Salam Cafe focus on the needs of specific children and families.
Without women working for NGOs, aid groups can’t help those who may be intimidated by male workers, advocates say.
The president and CEO of Save the Children, Janti Soeripto, said that when she’s visited Afghanistan, she focused on severe malnutrition in children and saw hospitals where Afghan women would only let other women examine them.
“It’s simply not possible to do our work effectively and safely if we can’t do that with women,” Soeripto said. She has said that about 16,000 Afghan women were working for NGOs. While there are some exceptions for the women to keep working, related to health care and education, according to the U.N., other concerns remain.
Soeripto said she recently spoke to Taliban leaders to push for more access to women for NGOs. Salam Cafe’s sponsor, Canadian-American Jasmin Mouflatd, said that this combination of restrictions on women is forcing them into poverty because there are hardly any kinds of jobs the Taliban will approve.
Salma no longer being able to educate girls with the cafe has been difficult, too, Mouflatd said.
“Salma is the glue that holds everything together. She is the one that will send invoices at 2 to 1 a.m. her time,” Mouflatd said, adding, “If she was somewhere like in America … she would be an asset to any company.”
Afghanistan is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with 28 million people in need of aid out of a population of around 40 million, according to Save the Children. But Soeripto said her organization can now do less than half of all of their work in the country, compared to before Christmas, in light of the Taliban’s ban.
More broadly, Soeripto also pointed to concerning signs that even when exemptions are granted for women, “they don’t always get followed through at a local provincial level.”
The same appears to be true of girls who want to keep pursuing schooling, the U.N. found, with about 200,000 still in secondary classes around the country despite restrictions handed down from the central government.
Salma remembered one incident in which a member of the Taliban harassed her for leaving her house without a man. She said he threatened her, telling her to wear a burqa, which is a full body covering.
“They take all our rights,” Salma said. Afghan women, she said, are being erased — from tinfoil and bags covering female mannequins’ faces to the removal or banning of female teachers and role models.
Still, Salma described the resilience of women who are opening bakeries in their kitchens and hiring other women to help them make money.
“There are some women which fight against the Taliban and their behavior. They will not stop. Never they will. They will not stop their works,” she said.
Mouflatd said that widows or female head of households are struggling to make rent. Her organization, Instant Aid, is helping these women by giving them chickens so they can sell eggs or teaching them crafts like embroidery to sell internationally.
Around a quarter of households in Afghanistan are women-led, according to the U.N.
“Decades of conflict resulted in a significant amount of women being widowed,” Soeripto said.
She believes the Taliban will continue to try to push women out of public life.
“For us to just stand by and just pretend that that doesn’t happen, I think [is] unconscionable,” she said.
In a statement, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it has also been meeting with “relevant authorities, to ensure that we will be able to continue carrying on our life-saving humanitarian operations, to the benefit of the Afghan population.”
“The international community needs sustained and increased engagement with the de facto authorities of Afghanistan, because there has to be a dialogue going as to how we can understand what the challenges are, what the issues are, and then how we can respond to that,” Soeripto said.
“I’m worried that edicts … make it easy for people to say, ‘We cannot work in an environment like this so let’s put it to work somewhere else,’ and that will be incredibly short-sighted,” Soeripto said.
For Salma, her biggest hope is for the return of peaceful stability to Afghanistan’s government while women get their “human being rights, our women rights.” She asked for the international community to “help us.”
“My biggest fear is that if I raise my voice, the Taliban will kill me,” she said. “If I fight against, that the Taliban will kill me. The Taliban will use violence against me. Maybe they use violence against my husband again, my brother? They will always use violence.”
