Guillaume Ptak

Hope and fear mingle as Ukrainians await first moves by Trump in war

It's hard to disrupt a stalemated war that will pass the three-year mark later this month, but the shift in power in Washington has managed to do just that.

February 3, 2025

On the front line, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians fiercely resist a costly peace deal

While polls show that a growing percentage of Ukraine's war-weary population is ready to cede territory to Moscow to secure a peace deal, many soldiers and civilians in the country's eastern Kharkiv region, the theater for some of the bloodiest battles of the war, stoutly oppose the idea.

December 29, 2024

Ukraine, Russia eye window of opportunity as they await return of Trump

No audience outside the Beltway may be more hungry for details of the looming transition of power in Washington than Ukraine, whose very existence may hang on decisions to be made by President-elect Donald Trump and the security and foreign policy team he is assembling.

December 5, 2024

The enemy within: Ukraine’s security forces battle Russian allies close to home

As Russia's remorseless offensive keeps gaining ground in the east, Ukraine's besieged security service is working overtime to catch the enemy from within -- a network of Russian saboteurs, collaborators and secret sympathizers with deep roots throughout the large part of the country still controlled by Kyiv.

November 22, 2024

Beleaguered Ukrainians deplore unpalatable choices as U.S. votes

Americans who are unhappy with their choices in the presidential election should spend some time in Ukraine. The anxious nation doesn't get to choose between a continuation of the Biden-Harris administration, which has been a source of mounting frustration, and a Trump administration, which promises perhaps more ominous policy shifts.

November 4, 2024

Ukrainian civilians face searing decisions as Russians advance in east

On a grey Tuesday morning in mid-October, a beaten-up Lada comes sputtering around the corner of a destroyed country house in the village of Hryshyne, in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk oblast, stopping in front of what's left of the town's center: A closed-down administrative building with its facade shredded by shrapnel, a few red-brick "Stalinka" housing units damaged by shelling, and a small grocery store with its windows boarded up.

October 29, 2024

In the middle of war, Ukraine’s defense industry stages stunning rebound

It's a silver lining around a very dark cloud: As Ukraine struggles to hold off a massive Russian invasion force, the country's own defense industry has experienced an unprecedented boom that is starting to be felt on the front lines.

October 15, 2024

Into enemy territory: Ukraine makes its points with tour of Russia’s Kursk

It's around noon on Tuesday, Sept. 10, when the Ukrainian armored personnel carrier stops after more than an hourlong drive. We have reached the border and are about to cross into enemy territory, "Vadym," the Ukrainian colonel supervising the press tour, informs us.

September 24, 2024

What now? Success in Kursk raises questions about the road ahead for Ukraine

It was the Ukrainian military's biggest success in months, but the surprise incursion deep into Russia's Kursk region is also raising some difficult questions about what comes next.

August 28, 2024

In contested areas of Ukraine, evangelicals bear the brunt of Russian persecution

For Ukraine's small evangelical Protestant minority, the war with Russia that began in February 2022 only accelerated what they say is a campaign of persecution that was underway long before massed Russian formations rumbled across the country's northern and eastern borders on February 24, 2022.

August 17, 2024

Soldiers won’t let Russia’s war spoil dreams of fatherhood; IVF doctor fights for rebirth of nation

With losses on the battlefield a grim daily reality and no end to the war in sight, Ukrainian soldiers have embraced a modern way of preserving their legacy and helping build the future of their embattled homeland: freezing their sperm so that their partners and wives can bear their children even if they're killed.

July 10, 2024

In a grinding battle far from the spotlight, weary Ukrainian soldiers hold the line

Much of the world's attention in recent months has been focused on Ukraine's desperate battle to hold off a new Russian offensive eyeing Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city after the capital of Kyiv. Yet a momentous strategic battle is being fought in Chasiv Yar, a devastated, obscure city on the front lines some 200 miles from Kharkiv.

June 16, 2024

Fields of nightmares: Russian invasion devastates agriculture, Ukrainian farmers

The breadbasket of Europe is now raising a grim bumper crop of mines, shells and rockets.

May 31, 2024

Russia escalates infrastructure war; assaults on Ukrainian grid cut off services, power to civilians

Russia made clear early on that it considered civilian infrastructure a legitimate target as its armies sought to conquer Ukraine.

May 8, 2024

With guns on the way, Ukraine scrounges for the soldiers to fire them

After months of deadlock, the U.S. Congress has finally approved $61 billion in badly needed military aid to Ukraine. But in a painful irony, with Ukraine's government struggling to replenish the ranks of its army, there may not be enough soldiers to man the new guns and fire the new shells.

April 24, 2024

Once the center of Ukraine’s hopes, the town of Orikhiv now lies in ruins

Once the starting point of Ukraine's 2023 summer counteroffensive, the small town of Orikhiv in southern Ukraine now finds itself in the middle of a two-way artillery firing range.

April 14, 2024

For medics on the front line in Ukraine, the biggest shortfall is people

Overworked Ukrainian medics near the front lines with Russia can hear the enemy shells as they deal with a heavy caseload of the wounded every day. But while short of supplies and equipment, those who staff 'Stabilization Point Azov' say the most glaring need is to find qualified, willing staff.

March 26, 2024

Grim chore: Ukrainian volunteers risk lives to retrieve soldiers’ remains — for both sides

Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine -- As the war in Ukraine drags on into its third year, volunteers of a NGO named "Platzdarm" have taken it upon themselves to carry out one of war's grimmest chores: recover and help identify the remains of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers left to die on the still-contested battlefield.

March 4, 2024

Ukraine’s ammunition shortages offer Russia first win in months

Starved for ammunition, the defenders of Ukraine's eastern town of Avdiivka were ordered last weekend to withdraw from the besieged city, handing Russia its first major victory since the capture of Bakhmut in May 2023.

February 22, 2024

Zelenskyy, in risky move, ousts popular military commander Zaluzhnyi

The collision from a slow-motion car wreck at the top of Ukraine's government finally came off Thursday as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced he was firing the popular commander of the country's armed forces.

February 8, 2024