Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kyiv and its Western allies have opened a new center in The Hague that will investigate Russian officials for the crime of aggression.
Japan has accepted some 2,300 Ukrainians under the status of evacuees since the conflict in their country began. For a country that welcomed 74 refugees from all across the world in 2021, this is an unprecedented number.
As Ukrainians fight to retake Russian- areas as part of their counteroffensive, VOA visits to a reclaimed Ukrainian village that is currently laden with explosives and may take a decade or more to clear.
In the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine, mine sweepers from the Halo Trust found more than 1,500 explosives scattered around 10 hectares in just one week. This humanitarian NGO has been operating in Ukraine since 2015 to clear out landmines and other explosive devices. They now mainly work in the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions.
Flooding caused by the Kakhovka dam explosion in Ukraine earlier this month could be felt up to 50 kilometers away in the Mykolaiv region. Vasylivka was one of the villages flooded by the overflowing Inhulets River. Locals are now beginning to return to their homes.
Environmental groups and aid agencies say that Ukraine faces a long road to an as-yet undetermined environmental catastrophe. A river in southern Ukraine was inundated last week by an explosion at a vital dam, threatening a host of ecosystems and the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
Working under Russian occupation, in the words of Ukrainian farmer Yuriy Voychenko, was nothing but “dead farm workers and injured cattle.” In Kharkiv, Russian forces abandoned their post in September 2022, but not before leaving a deadĺy legacy behind: mines.
According to data from the language-learning app Duolingo, more than one million people have begun learning Ukrainian since February of last year. According to reports, there is still a lot of interest in learning Ukrainian, and the top three countries with the most Ukrainian language learners are Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
It is now difficult for people outside of Russia to know what Russians think about the conflict due to the Russian media crackdown that followed its invasion of Ukraine. Some Russian tourists Genia Dulot met in Egypt described how their lives have changed.
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, spoke with VOA about the Ukrainian capital as the war with Russia enters its second year. Tatiana Vorozhko has this story.