Latest news with #Ukrainians'
NZ Herald
3 days ago
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Even as air-raid sirens blare in wartime, Ukrainians wait for the traffic light to change
Anyone new to Ukraine notices the disconnect between the front line and much of daily life farther away. Complicated espresso drinks are still sold at service stations; pizza and sushi are still on offer; and rave parties still rave, even if they end at 11pm, in time for the midnight curfew. The desire for order is core to how Ukrainians cope in this fourth year of Russia's full-scale invasion. Traffic lights seem to be the most obvious sign of how Ukrainians hold onto normality. Red means stop. Green means go. There is no yellow light here, no caution, no chancing it. Even during air-raid alarms. 'Even when I walk my dog in the evening and there are no cars at all, I still wait at the kerb,' said Volodymyr Yeremenko, 63, a resident of Pryluky, a city of about 52,000 people about 145km east of Kyiv, who had come to the capital for a doctor's appointment. Spotting a foreigner in Ukraine is easy. They cross when the light is still red, or, God forbid, wander in traffic, something that is a hobby (or death wish) in cities like New York. Ukrainians have been known to shake their heads or to caution them not to cross. Ukrainians say strictly obeying traffic signals was a peculiarity here long before the war. Maybe it's a way to show they are more like the people in notoriously law-abiding street-crossing nations such as Finland or Germany. 'In Lviv, it's striking how people obey pedestrian traffic lights, even when there are no cars around,' wrote Johannes Majamaki, 24, a Finnish law student, on social media recently. Majamaki, who often visits Ukraine, posted a photograph of pedestrians waiting on a carless corner. 'It feels like being back home in Helsinki,' he noted. Putting firm numbers on how widespread law-abiding behaviour at traffic lights is in Ukraine is difficult. Pedestrians wait for the light at a crossing in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 20. Photo / Brendan Hoffman, the New York Times The Kyiv police did not respond to repeated questions for data on the number of tickets issued for crossing against a red light. The offence, a US$6 fine, is lumped together with offences by animal-drawn vehicles and errant bicycles, so it's impossible to parse out the pedestrian violations. But Anton Grushetskyi, executive director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, said he thought that waiting patiently at the light was a cultural habit. He said he typically crossed the street only on a green light. He said that was his custom, even if there were no cars, in 2005 and today, in the middle of the war. He added that he had not noticed any change in Ukrainians' street-crossing behaviour since the Russians invaded in February 2022 because the war had been normalised for most people. 'This is more a matter of habit — something the war hasn't really changed,' Grushetskyi said. 'The sum of all these habits creates the impression of normal life, which is something many people deeply need.' That doesn't mean that everyone always follows the rules in Ukraine. Plenty of government officials, for example, have been accused and convicted of taking money they shouldn't. While waiting for the light, Yehor Riabchenko, 16, admitted that he climbed a wooden fence last year when he wasn't supposed to. But he also fell and broke his elbow. On this Tuesday, he was rushing to the hospital to get stitches removed after a recent surgery for the injury when the air-raid alarm rang out. Still, he waited for the green. Yurii Ukrainets, 71, a retired military man, also waited patiently at the corner in Kyiv for the green pedestrian light during the air-raid alert because, he said, he had no desire to throw himself under the wheels of an oncoming car. What would happen if he ran across the street dodging cars? Chaos, that's what. 'Rules are rules,' said Ukrainets, who was on his way to a government office to check on his pension. 'Imagine my grandson is out there with my daughter, and they see me crossing against a red light. 'If I don't see them, but they see me, what will they think? 'Grandpa breaks the rules — so I can too.' I don't want to set that kind of example.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Kim Barker Photographs by: Brendan Hoffman ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
Novaya Gazeta Europe
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Novaya Gazeta Europe
Ukraine wing of Russia-linked neo-Nazi group claims involvement in killing of security service colonel — Novaya Gazeta Europe
The Ukrainian wing of far-right terrorist organisation The Base, which is suspected of having ties to Russia, has claimed involvement in the recent killing of a top-ranking intelligence colonel in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, The Guardian reported on Wednesday. Last Thursday, Colonel Ivan Voronych was fatally shot five times in Kyiv by an unidentified gunman who fled the scene of the killing in an SUV. On Sunday, Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) chief Vasyl Malyuk announced that two Russian FSB agents suspected of assassinating Voronych had been killed in a police raid on their place of residence in Kyiv. The Base, founded in 2018 by Rinaldo Nazzaro, a former Pentagon contractor suspected of engaging in espionage at the behest of the Kremlin, is a neo-Nazi terrorist group previously implicated in 'an assassination plot, mass shootings, and other actions in Europe', according to The Guardian. For months, the newspaper reports, The Base has been offering to pay members or voluntary collaborators to conduct 'targeted assassinations' or attacks on Ukraine's 'critical infrastructure', in a similar fashion to the sabotage operations carried out in Europe by Russia's intelligence services. In two Telegram posts published last week, White Phoenix, the alleged Ukraine-based arm of The Base, claimed that its 'activists' had carried out a 'carefully planned' attack on Voronych as a 'warning to the regime' of Volodymyr Zelensky. 'The execution of the SBU colonel is not the end, but only the beginning,' one post by the White Phoenix read, adding that it was 'proud of [its] comrades' and calling on 'all honest Ukrainians' to join them. Independent media outlet Agentstvo wrote that the Base's founder Nazzaro lives in St. Petersburg and has been married to a Russian woman since 2012. In April, The Guardian reported that former members of The Base suspected Nazzaro of having ties to Russian special services, although he has repeatedly denied the allegation, including at one occasion on Russian state TV. According to The New York Times, Voronych was a senior officer in the Fifth Directorate, an elite SBU unit responsible for killing a top Russian separatist commander named Arsen Pavlov, also known as Motorola, in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region in 2016.
Boston Globe
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Zelensky arrives in UK after Russian attack on Kyiv kills at least 9
Zelensky said discussions would focus on coordinating diplomatically with Ukraine's allies — likely a reference to cease-fire negotiations — developing joint weapons production projects, and tightening sanctions on Russia. Advertisement Monday's visit appears to be part of a broader European diplomatic push. On Wednesday, Zelensky will address the Council of Europe, the Continent's leading human rights institution. In between, he may attend the NATO summit in The Hague, though he has yet to confirm his participation amid fears that Ukraine could be sidelined during the talks. Monday's attack was the second lethal barrage on Kyiv in the past week. Last Tuesday, 28 people died in a Russian assault, most of them the victims of a strike on another apartment building. That was the deadliest attack on the Ukrainian capital in nearly a year. Advertisement The new salvo of strikes has reinforced many Ukrainians' belief that Moscow is not interested in a cease-fire, especially as its military pushes ahead with a summer offensive in eastern Ukraine. A strike Sunday in Kramatorsk, a city near the eastern front line, killed four people. 'Russia is once again striking at human lives and destinies,' Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, said Monday after the attack. 'This is not a trend, not an accident — it is a plan.' Those killed Monday appeared to have been in a residential building that was struck. Ukraine's emergency services released photos showing part of the five-story structure collapsed into rubble. As crews worked to clear the debris, officials warned that more people were probably still trapped beneath the wreckage. Several European officials in Kyiv, including Katarina Mathernova, the European Union ambassador, condemned the attack. Still, Ukraine worries that its most important ally, the United States, may further disengage from Ukraine's war effort after joining Israel's attacks on Iran over the weekend. Last week, President Trump skipped a scheduled meeting with Zelensky, at the Group of 7 summit in Canada, citing the need to return to Washington to handle the situation in the Middle East. Zelensky is likely to be worried that he could get similar treatment from world leaders at a NATO summit set to begin Tuesday in The Hague. He has yet to announce whether he will join that meeting of leaders of the bloc, which has promised to eventually make Ukraine a member. Advertisement Western leaders' shift in focus to the Middle East could leave Ukraine in a difficult position, stripped of the diplomatic leverage it hoped to use this year to end the war. Cease-fire talks have largely stalled, and without US support and pressure for more negotiations, Ukraine may have to endure a prolonged conflict on the battlefield, where its troops are slowly but steadily losing ground. If he manages to speak with Trump face-to-face in The Hague, Zelensky has said, he plans to request authorization for the sale of US-made Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine and to discuss new sanctions against Russia. 'Frankly, we need to talk about revitalizing diplomacy,' Zelensky told journalists last week. 'We need more clarity and more global pressure on Putin.' This article originally appeared in
Budapest Times
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Budapest Times
Orbán: Ukraine would not last a day without the West
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told public radio that not only would Ukraine be unable to fight a war with Russia without the West, but it 'would not even last a day'. In his weekly interview, PM Orbán said the Ukrainians were 'incapable of keeping their own state functioning', adding that 'we're the ones paying for Ukrainians' pensions, the salaries of state employees and the operation of Ukrainian public services.' 'We're the ones funding their military,' he said. 'So, without us, without the West, Ukraine wouldn't last a day; not only would it be unable to fight a war against Russia. it simply couldn't even exist,' the prime minister said. 'Admitting a country like this to the European Union means taking on a lot of trouble; there's no need for that.' PM Orbán said that if Ukraine were admitted to the EU, 'war would also be admitted'. This would mean that there would be an EU member with a war going on along its eastern borders, 'and it would only be a matter of time before every European Union member got involved in that war', he said. 'We don't want the Russia-Ukraine war to become our war,' he said. PM Orbán said that three years ago, western European leaders had 'jumped into the war' with the idea that 'this is our war', that Ukraine was actually fighting for Europe's security, that Russia posed a threat and had to be defeated on Ukraine's territory rather than closer to the EU's borders. He said he had always considered this approach a mistake because it had 'suddenly made Ukraine a security threat' to Europe. The Hungarian government, on the other hand, 'as the sole pro-peace force', had always called the war a conflict between 'two Slavic brothers', PM Orbán said, noting that the government has been calling for a ceasefire to prevent the conflict from expanding and hurting the European economy in the long run.
LeMonde
11-06-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
In Ukraine, the high stakes of documenting the war
From the bodies strewn in the streets of Bucha to civilian victims of Russian shelling, from buildings struck by missiles to the environmental consequences of the conflict, few aspects of the war have escaped Ukrainians' determination to record, document and archive everything. There are now hundreds of such initiatives. And they are not limited to the current armed conflict with Russia: Countless projects are revisiting Ukraine's history, culture and arts, as well as its cuisine, wildlife and flora. Ukrainians are not the first to be deeply committed to documenting their own war in real time. Over the past 15 years, driven by historical awareness, a thirst for information and hopes for justice – and thanks to new means of communication and technology – activists from the Arab Spring, Iranian protesters, besieged Syrians and now Gazans cut off from the world have pioneered the daily documentation of conflict. But Ukraine is undoubtedly reaching a new level never seen before in terms of scale.
