The Washington Post

Russia expels U.K. diplomats as Putin warns over Ukraine’s Western weapons

Russia on Friday stripped six British diplomats of accreditation, accusing them of spying, ahead of a crucial White House meeting between President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that is expected to discuss whether to allow Ukraine to strike military targets deep inside Russia using some long-range Western weapons.

On the eve of the meeting, President Vladimir Putin also issued a tough warning that if Ukraine did fire Western missiles deep into Russia, it would mean that Russia was at war with NATO, and Moscow would respond accordingly.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said that Britain’s Foreign Office was coordinating “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine to ensure Russia’s defeat in the war and the diplomats were “threatening the security of the Russian Federation.”

Read the full story here.

Zelensky confirms Russian counteroffensive in Ukrainian-controlled Kursk

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Thursday that Russia had begun fighting to take back the parts of its Kursk region occupied by Ukrainian forces last month.

Speaking at a news conference, Zelensky said that the Russian “counteroffensive actions were according to our Ukrainian plan.”

He declined to say anything more about the region, which Ukraine overtook during a surprise incursion in early August. Zelensky has stated before that Kursk — where Ukraine grabbed about 500 square miles, including 100 settlements and nearly 600 prisoners of war — was part of his plan to end the conflict.

In the past two days, though, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that Russian troops had reclaimed 10 settlements in the region, amid worries by Ukraine’s allies over whether Kursk was worth the gamble and whether it can be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations.

Read the full story here.

Ukraine launches largest drone attack yet on Moscow, killing 1, Russia says

A major Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow and eight other Russian regions on Tuesday killed a resident of the capital for the first time, after a drone hit a residential apartment building.

Three of Moscow’s airports, the Zhukovsky, Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports, were temporarily closed as a result of the attacks. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said at least 14 drones were shot down in and around Moscow.

A 46-year-old woman was killed in the strike on an apartment block around 18 miles from the capital. Twelve people were injured, one of them seriously.

Read the full story here.

In Ukraine’s Poltava, soldier buries a father he thought safe from war

It was the son fighting on the front lines that everyone worried about — but then his father died first, blown apart in a missile attack 100 miles from the battlefield.

And so on Saturday, as funeral after funeral began in the central Ukrainian city of Poltava — where 58 people at a military institute were killed in a strike on Sept. 3 — Oleksandr Horodnytskyi drove to the morgue to pick up the father he’d hoped to protect by going to war. Now, he had five days of leave from his assault brigade to process his grief and bury the man who raised him.

One of the deadliest single bombardments of the war left dozens of victims to be buried more than 100 miles from the front lines.

Read the full story here.

How a Russian airstrike ripped through people’s lives in Ukraine’s Poltava

Two days earlier, Maksym Havryliuk had been a student at a military institute in Poltava, in central Ukraine. Here — more than 100 miles from the front lines north of Kharkiv — his mom thought he would be safe. But then, on Tuesday, two ballistic missiles slammed into the campus less than a minute apart, killing 55 people and injuring 328.

By Thursday, the horror in Poltava had sharpened into rage. The search for survivors was over. Doctors at seven hospitals struggled to keep critically injured patients alive. Families sat on benches in front of the morgue, waiting to retrieve the bodies of their sons and daughters — some receiving only blown-apart remains.

Read the full story here.

D.C. lobbyists battle over future of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine

The Ukrainian parliament passed a law in August banning religious organizations with ties to Russia. The legislation establishes a legal framework that, according to religious experts, could effectively close down the Ukrainian branch of the Orthodox Church connected to Moscow.

Leading the campaign in the United States against Kyiv’s efforts to create what it says is a Ukrainian Orthodox Church free of Moscow’s influence is Robert Amsterdam.

Read the full story here.

Ukraine’s Zelensky sharpens appeal to end restrictions on weapons

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Western nations on Friday to lift restrictions on the use of donated weapons against Russian territory, telling military and defense leaders gathered in Germany that it was “wrong” to tie his country’s hands in battling Russia’s forces.

Zelensky, in his first in-person appearance at a U.S.-led forum of nations providing arms to Ukraine, expressed gratitude for ongoing military support but said more is needed to help end the protracted conflict with Russia.

Zelensky’s appeal, delivered at a U.S. military base in Germany hosting the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, underscores the stakes of the current battlefield moment for Kyiv. Ukraine is struggling to contain Russian progress in the east while its forces also advance deeper into Russia itself.

Read the full story here.

Ukraine set to tap former ambassador Andrii Sybiha as top diplomat

KYIV — Ukraine’s parliament voted Thursday to accept the resignation of Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and is expected to appoint Andrii Sybiha — the country’s former ambassador to Turkey and past deputy head of the presidential office — to replace him.

Kuleba served as Ukraine’s chief diplomat since 2020, and for more than two years of full-scale war, he traveled the world pleading for more weapons, air defense and support for Ukraine to counter Russia’s invasion. But he was often overshadowed by Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, who oversaw many key international relationships.

Sybiha, a senior diplomat, left his role as Yermak’s deputy earlier this year to serve as deputy foreign minister. He was ambassador to Turkey from 2016 to 2021, an experience that was likely seen as an asset due to the critical role Turkey plays in the war.

Read the full story here.

Ukraine’s foreign minister resigns in largest shake-up since war began

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has submitted his resignation, the country’s parliamentary speaker announced Wednesday, marking the latest major change in Kyiv’s leadership amid the largest government shake-up since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

The reorganization of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wartime administration comes at a critical moment for Ukraine, as Russian forces push forward in the east and unleash a new wave of attacks on cities. Overnight into Wednesday, seven people were killed by strikes in the western city of Lviv, which is normally far from the fighting and attacked less frequently than others.

Read the full story here.

Dozens killed in Russian missile strike on Ukrainian city of Poltava

More than 40 people have been killed and 180 wounded in a Russian missile strike on the central Ukrainian city of Poltava, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday.

Two ballistic missiles struck the area, targeting an educational institution and a nearby hospital, Zelensky said, adding that many people were trapped under the rubble.

“Unfortunately, there are many casualties,” Zelensky said. “As of now, we know that 41 people were killed.”

Read the full story here.

Ukraine launches massive drone attack on Russian energy infrastructure

Russia shot down 158 drones overnight, including 11 over Moscow and the surrounding region, its Defense Ministry said Sunday, as officials across the country scrambled to respond to what appeared to be one of the largest Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia yet.

The assault targeted energy infrastructure, including power plants and oil refineries, and fires broke out at several facilities, including in Moscow. Officials said dozens of the drones were shot down over the Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a surprise incursion on Aug. 6. Russia still controls part of the region.

Read the full story here.

Ukraine Air Force chief dismissed after F-16 crash

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday he had “decided to replace” the commander of the country’s Air Force, Mykola Oleshchuk.

The shake-up came a day after Ukraine’s military announced that one of its few F-16 fighter jets crashed during an operation this week to combat a wave of Russian missiles.

Announcing the move in his evening address, Zelensky did not detail why he dismissed Oleshchuk, saying: “This is equally necessary at the command level – we must strengthen ourselves and protect our people. Protect our personnel. Protect all our warriors.”

Read the full story here.

Opinion | Life in Putin’s gulag: “A long ‘Groundhog Day,’” says Vladimir Kara-Murza

Post contributing columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza was convicted of treason and sentenced to 25 years by Vladimir Putin’s regime. The verdict was ostensibly for his criticism of the war in Ukraine. But his case was really meant as a general warning to others who might stand up to Russia’s authoritarian system.

Earlier this month, our dear friend and colleague was part of the largest international prisoner exchange since the Cold War. He recently joined Opinion Editor David Shipley to talk about his ordeal, how it feels to be free at last — and why he thinks the Putin regime’s days are numbered.

Read or listen to the opinion here.

Ukrainian F-16 crashes, killing pilot, during Russian missile attack

A Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet crashed, killing its pilot, as it was fending off a barrage of Russian missiles, Ukraine’s military said Thursday.

During the operation, communication was lost with one of the jets and it later became apparent that “the plane crashed” and “the pilot died,” Ukraine’s general staff said in a Telegram post. A special commission was appointed to probe the cause of the accident, it said. Four Russian cruise missiles were shot down by the F-16, the military said.

The Ukrainian statement about the crash did not name the pilot who was killed. A separate statement published earlier Thursday by the Ukrainian air defense on Facebook announced the death of pilot Oleksiy Mes during an operation on Monday.

Read the full story here.

Opinion | Vladimir Kara-Murza: “My first thought was that I was going to be led out to be executed”

“Welcome to freedom,” were the first words from Jens Plötner, the German chancellor’s national security adviser, who greeted us in the terminal. And just when I thought things couldn’t get any more surreal, a diplomat from the U.S. Embassy approached me with a cellphone and told me that the president of the United States was on the line. Alongside him, I heard the voices of my wife and children whom I had been forbidden from calling from prison for more than two years.

I don’t have the words, in any language, to describe the feeling.

The exchange in Ankara was historic in many ways.

Read the full opinion here.

Reuters denies Russian claim its slain security adviser was British spy

Russia has claimed that the security adviser with the Reuters news agency who was killed when a missile struck a hotel in eastern Ukraine last week was a British spy, linking his death to Moscow’s assertion that foreign mercenaries are involved in Ukraine’s attack on the Kursk region.

At a press briefing Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed without evidence that security adviser Ryan Evans, who was killed in a strike Saturday on the Sapphire Hotel in the city of Kramatorsk, was registered as a former employee of MI6, an arm of the British secret services. “But we are well aware that there are not former MI6 employees,” she said.

Read the full story here.