u/KI_official

Ukraine marks Vyshyvanka Day on May 21, celebrating the traditional embroidered shirt as a global symbol of national identity and cultural preservation. What began in 2006 as a student flashmob initiated by Lesia Voroniuk in Chernivtsi has since evolved into a widespread national and diaspora tradition. Today, Ukrainians worldwide wear the garments on national holidays and special occasions to honor and protect their rich folk heritage.

Photo: hurricanehank; Ukrinform; Viktor Kovalchuk; Dmytro Bartosh; Yan Dobronosov / Getty Images.

Today marks exactly seven years since Volodymyr Zelensky took office as a political outsider promising a “clean slate” for Ukraine.

 In this snippet from Ukraine This Week, host Anna Belokur sits down with journalist Danylo Mokryk to analyze whether the system actually changed under Zelensky’s leadership. Mokryk, who spent years covering Ukraine’s domestic politics before joining the Kyiv Independent’s war crimes investigations unit, argues that despite renaming key institutions like the Presidential Office, the actual functioning of political power remained the same.

Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAnjBKlIEOo

As Ukraine intensifies strikes inside Russia, videos circulating online show Russians reacting to the war increasingly reaching their own regions, including during one of the latest large-scale attacks on the Moscow region.

Overnight on May 16–17, a joint operation by Ukraine’s SBU and Armed Forces targeted military-industrial sites, oil infrastructure, and air defense systems across Moscow Oblast and occupied Crimea. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the operation a fair response to Russia’s ongoing attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

Kyiv has stepped up long-range strikes in recent months, demonstrating an apparent growing ability to hit targets in areas heavily protected by Russian air defenses.

Video: supernova_plus; exilenova_plus / Telegram.

For Lia Gazi, a 24-year-old Crimean Tatar activist in exile, the second half of May each year signifies both personal and collective tragedy — the forced deportation and genocide of the Crimean Tatar People.

Over the course of two days in 1944, from May 18 to May 20, the Soviet secret policy forcibly deported over 190,000 indigenous Crimean Tatars across thousands of kilometers from Crimea to Central Asia. Members of Gazi's family were among the victims.

"Strangers still live in our homes today, and the scariest thing is that the impunity surrounding these crimes allows them to happen again and again," Gazi told the Kyiv Independent.

The deportation of Crimean Tatars was carried out under direct orders from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who labeled the entire Crimean Tatar population as traitors following the peninsula's liberation from Nazi occupation. An estimated 8,000 Crimean Tatars died in the process.

Decades have passed since Gazi's ancestors were deported, and now history appears to be repeating itself: In Crimea, occupied since 2014, and other occupied territories, Crimean Tatars now face political repression and persecution, as well as erasure of their identity and history.

Read the full article here: https://kyivindependent.com/in-crimea-you-cant-even-mention-it-out-loud-82-years-after-soviet-deportation-russia-continues-persecution-of-crimean-tatars/

Photo: ullstein bild; Max Vetrov; Danil Shamkin; Danylo Antoniuk / Getty Images; Lia Gazı / Archive.

The analysis reveals that the drone war is now delivering something Ukraine has never had before: the ability to strike even heavily defended targets around the Russian capital. From the Tuapse oil terminal to the Moscow Refinery, deep strikes are forcing Russians to confront a war their government told them they could ignore.

Read more: https://kyivindependent.com/analysis-how-ukraine-gained-the-upper-hand-in-the-drone-war/

Photos: Dmytro Smolienko / Ukrinform / NurPhoto / Getty Images; Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo; Satellite image / 2026 Vantor / Getty Images; Alexander Nemenov / AFP / Getty Images

Some hoped that with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban leaving office on May 9, Ukraine's path to EU membership would become much smoother. Instead, problems of substance have risen to the surface, which could prove difficult for Kyiv to fully address.

Pressure is rising in Brussels to find a way to reach an agreement on opening so-called "enlargement clusters" by the next meeting of EU leaders on June 18. National ambassadors have raised the concern that there might not be sufficient progress in time, but who or what is blocking the way now?

Not the European Commission. The EU's Enlargement Commissioner, Marta Kos, has repeatedly said that Ukraine is ready to open all six of the enlargement clusters. Any blockages, therefore, are politically driven by specific EU countries.

Read more: https://kyivindependent.com/ukraines-obstacle-course-the-countries-blocking-progress-on-joining-the-eu/

Photo: Simon Wohlfahrt/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

When 23-year-old Russian student Valery Averin signed a military contract in January after being recruited into Russia’s drone forces campaign targeting students, he was told he would train as a drone operator. Three months later, he was dead near Luhansk after reportedly being sent into an assault unit despite having no military experience.

His case, reported by the BBC Russian Service, appears to be the first known death linked to Russia’s growing campaign to recruit university and college students for the war against Ukraine.

As Russia struggles to replenish its forces — with battlefield losses exceeding recruitment rates for five consecutive months — without launching another politically risky mobilization wave, students are increasingly becoming a new recruitment pool for the war, with universities themselves pushing them to the front.

Read the full article here: https://kyivindependent.com/first-known-russian-recruited-from-university-dies-in-ukraine-exposing-russias-student-recruitment-campaign/

Photo: Kirill Kudryavtsev; Contributor; Sefa Karacan; Laurel Chor / Getty Images.

When 23-year-old Russian student Valery Averin signed a military contract in January after being recruited into Russia’s drone forces campaign targeting students, he was told he would train as a drone operator. Three months later, he was dead near Luhansk after reportedly being sent into an assault unit despite having no military experience.

His case, reported by the BBC Russian Service, appears to be the first known death linked to Russia’s growing campaign to recruit university and college students for the war against Ukraine.

As Russia struggles to replenish its forces — with battlefield losses exceeding recruitment rates for five consecutive months — without launching another politically risky mobilization wave, students are increasingly becoming a new recruitment pool for the war, with universities themselves pushing them to the front.

Read the full article here: https://kyivindependent.com/first-known-russian-recruited-from-university-dies-in-ukraine-exposing-russias-student-recruitment-campaign/

Photo: Kirill Kudryavtsev; Contributor; Sefa Karacan; Laurel Chor / Getty Images.