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Stay on top of Russia-Ukraine war 06-23-2024 developments on the ground with KyivPost fact-based news, exclusive video footage, photos and updated war maps.
Armed militants attacked Orthodox churches and synagogues in Derbent and Makhachkala on Sunday, causing multiple casualties.
Armed militants conducted coordinated attacks on Orthodox churches, synagogues, and a police station in Derbent and Makhachkala on Sunday, June 23, resulting in the deaths of at least seven police officers, one priest, and one civilian.
Derbent and Makhachkala are cities in Dagestan, a republic in Russia situated in the North Caucasus region.
Anna Solovei, a young Ukrainian musician, is embracing her Ukrainian heritage through the bandura while exploring the improvisational possibilities of jazz.
In a dimly lit jazz hall, a young Ukrainian musician is strumming and plucking the strings of an instrument half her size alongside a jazz band.
Her name is Anna Solovei, and the instrument she’s playing is a bandura, a traditional Ukrainian folk instrument that is intertwined with the development of Ukrainian identity.
Sevastopol, a Black Sea port city and naval base on the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, regularly comes under fire from Ukraine, but Sunday's attack was unusually deadly.
A Ukrainian missile attack Sunday on a city in the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula killed three people, including two children, and wounded over 100, officials said.
Fragments hit beachgoers in Sevastopol after at least one missile was intercepted by air defences and exploded in the air, according to officials.
Daria Zymenko is one of the survivors who have overcome their fear and shame to speak of the horrors that she and countless other Ukrainian women have undergone.
When invading Russian troops advanced towards Kyiv and the first explosions rang out in the suburbs, Daria Zymenko took refuge in Gavronshchyna, her parents' village near the Ukrainian capital.
The Russians took control of Gavronshchyna soon after. One day several soldiers, drunk and armed, burst into the family's home, saying that Zymenko, an illustrator, must be taken in for questioning.
According to the First Deputy Defense Minister, more than 90,000 Russian troops, stationed well within Russian territory, were preparing for a new attack at that time.
The recent decision by the United States to authorize Ukraine's use of Western weaponry on Russian soil has rapidly changed the course of the war.
According to Ukrainian military sources cited by the Associated Press, the approval granted in late May allowed Ukrainian brigades to deploy HIMARS missile systems within hours.
In Russia the government has not only banned the Witnesses’ legal entities but it has clearly shown its intent to wipe out their peaceful worship.
The European Times (21.06.2024) – Nine Jehovah’s Witnesses living in the occupied territory of Crimea are currently serving heavy prison terms of 54 to 72 months for exercising their right to freedom of assembly and worship in private houses:
Releases should not be expected until 2016 in six cases, 2017 in one case and 2018 in two cases.
The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.
The Biden administration will again allow Iran to run absentee voter stations on U.S. soil for next week’s Iranian presidential election, VOA has learned, prompting the Islamic republic’s critics to denounce the plan as absurd and shameful. Iranian Foreign Ministry official Alireza Mahmoudi told state media on Sunday that Tehran is planning to set up more than 30 ballot stations across the United States for the June 28 vote to replace Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month. Mahmoudi said ballot boxes for Iranian absentee voters would be set up at the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington and in New York but did not identify other locations. Iranian state media say the United States is home to the largest proportion of overseas-based Iranians at 30%. The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimates there are about half a million people born in Iran or of Iranian origin in the U.S., while the Iranian American nonprofit group National Union for Democracy in Iran, or NUFDI, says it has a higher estimate of more than 1 million. Canada and Turkey follow with 12% shares of the Iranian diaspora, according to Iranian state media. Mahmoudi said Iran is arranging absentee voting in other diaspora locations as well. - VOA
At least three dead and 54 injured in Kharkiv in what local officials describe as a direct hit on a densely populated residential complex. Initial images suggest a very powerful explosion, impacting multiple locations. Mayor Ihor Terekhov said: “There are dead and wounded. The strike hit a residential building,” Terekhov wrote on Telegram. Regional Governor Oleh Synegubov said on Telegram that "doctors are fighting for the lives of four of the patients -- two women and two men, who are in serious condition."
Russia has stepped up attacks in the northeastern Kharkiv region after launching a new offensive there last month.
A Russian strike on a residential building in Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv killed two people and injured more than 50, rescuers said on Sunday, revising down a previous death toll.
Russia has stepped up attacks in the northeastern Kharkiv region after launching a new offensive there last month, seeking to break a largely static front line as the invasion grinds through its third year.
This change comes after revelations that the intelligence provided by Beseda's department played a crucial role in Putin's decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022.
Sergei Beseda, head of the FSB's Fifth Service, has been dismissed from his post.
According to the "Important Stories" media outlet, citing two sources, Alexey Komkov, who previously worked as deputy head of the counterintelligence service, has taken over.
This attack followed the one conducted on Friday, when Ukrainian forces struck a Shahed drone warehouse in Russia's Krasnodar Territory.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine successfully destroyed the control point of a Russian motorized rifle regiment early morning on Sunday, June 23, the General Staff reported.
"Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in cooperation with other Defense Forces components, successfully attacked the control point of the enemy's motorized rifle regiment in Nehoteevka, Belgorod region," the General Staff said in a statement.
The Russian president Putin visited the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Wednesday. In Pyongyang they signed a "partnership deal" on close cooperation and pledging mutual defense assistance.
Putin risks stepping on Beijing's toes
Although this is a move against the West, Moscow's alliance with North Korea risks compromising its position in the East, political scientist Vladimir Pastukhov explains in a Telegram post republished by Echo:
Two of three missiles were intercepted and shot down by anti-aircraft units of the Air Force in the Kyiv region.
Russian troops launched an attack on the Kyiv region using three Kalibr sea-based cruise missiles from the Sea of Azov early morning on Sunday, June 23, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported.
Two of the missiles were intercepted and shot down by anti-aircraft units of the Air Force in the Kyiv region.
Ukraine were looking to bounce back from a 3-0 thrashing by Romania in their opening game, but they fell behind early on in Duesseldorf as Ivan Schranz put Slovakia in front.
Coach Serhiy Rebrov said his players "showed the spirit of Ukraine" as they fought back to beat Slovakia 2-1 on Friday and stay in contention for a place in the last 16 at Euro 2024.
Ukraine were looking to bounce back from a 3-0 thrashing by Romania in their opening game at the tournament in Germany, but they fell behind early on in Duesseldorf as Ivan Schranz put Slovakia in front.
The mercenary chief died in a mysterious aeroplane crash two months after ordering the short-lived mutiny on June 23-24 2023.
Almost a year since Yevgeny Prigozhin sent his Wagner mercenaries marching towards Moscow in a rebellion against Russia's military leadership, residents in the capital spoke of respect and admiration for the late renegade.
The mercenary chief died in a mysterious aeroplane crash two months after ordering the short-lived mutiny on June 23-24 2023.
Even Putin’s own sycophants are having trouble swallowing the vision he proffers with incessant saber-rattling. The similarities with a previous Fuhrer are hard to miss.
Western leaders gathered recently to mark the 80th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II. The setting offered a poignant and historically mobilizing platform for these Allies who currently involved in a Fourth World War being waged in both Europe and the Middle East. (The Third World War, the Cold War, was lost by the USSR and Putin has now unleashed a fourth. He wants to avenge this defeat the same way Hitler started World War II to avenge Germany’s loss in World War I.)
“Putin is the Hitler of our day. Under no circumstances can we repeat the tragic mistake of the 1930s.” These words, when spoken on the shores of Omaha Beach, sound all the more organic and persuasive.
Moscow’s actions in Syria should serve as cautionary tale for what they have long been preparing. Now the entire Mediterranean and Europe is at risk.
Ukrainian forces helped Syrian rebels attack Russian mercenaries in the Golan Heights earlier this year. The attack was not reported in the Western press, but was undertaken to prevent Moscow from recruiting and training more terrorists and soldiers for its armed forces.
Syria is a failed state and has become a staging ground for Moscow’s misadventures. Putin still has military bases and thousands of soldiers there, years after sending its troops to help President Bashar al-Assad crush pro-democratic movements. That civil war led to the world’s largest refugee crisis, and became the testing ground for Russian weapons and tactics that now destroy Ukraine. It was also where Hamas and others were trained to attack Israel and is now where Moscow continues to execute schemes aimed at destabilizing the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.
Writer, journalist and editor Vladislav Davidzon shares his thoughts on the current situation with Kyiv Post's chief editor Bohdan Nahaylo while participating in the Black Sea Security Forum.
Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.
Key Takeaways from the ISW:
Sidebar Stories – In the vein of “literature is news that stays news,” Kyiv Post presents some not necessarily factual narratives that offer added insight into Ukraine’s realities.
Editor’s note: an exclusive excerpt from the latest work by Yuriy Tarnawsky, co-founder of the New York Group, whose poetry and novels have pushed the boundaries of what is possible with language and form more than any other Ukrainian writer.
Written in an internal monologue style, driven by incessant denial of what has been said he developed in his 2011 story “Father,” Yuriy Tarnawsky’s The First-Person Dilogy mixes autobiographical data with fiction, to create a powerful, two-part music-like composition of syntax and semantics. The first novel, Sebastian in a Dream, was inspired by Georg Trakl’s famous eponymous poem and is patterned on J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, consisting of 30 variations, preceded and followed by the same aria, and deals with a semi-comatose man expecting the arrival of his real or imaginary son. Its companion, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, which is based on El Greco’s masterpiece, also consists of 30 variations that roughly correspond to the thirty figures in the painting, describes a man who has come to die in the Spanish city of Toledo and visits each day the church in which the painting is housed, in order to see it.
