Svitlana Morenets is a Ukrainian journalist and a staff writer at The Spectator. She was named Young Journalist of the Year in the 2024 UK Press Awards. Subscribe to her free weekly email, Ukraine in Focus, here
The diplomatic spat between Kyiv and Jerusalem over the Russian vessel wanting to unload stolen grain from occupied Ukrainian territories in Israel appears to have reached a conclusion this morning. The Panama-flagged Panormitis, which was carrying more than 6,200 tons of wheat and 19,000 tons of barley, arrived at the port of Haifa early this
It is remarkable how heavily the Russian army has relied on western technology during a war it claims to be fighting against the West. After Starlink terminals went offline on both sides of the Ukrainian frontline on Wednesday evening, Russian communications were sent into disarray. ‘The enemy at the front doesn’t have a problem; the enemy
When Donald Trump announced yesterday that Vladimir Putin had agreed to stop bombing Ukrainian cities for a week, officials in Kyiv were taken aback. Volodymyr Zelensky said there were no direct agreements between Ukraine and Russia to suspend air strikes on critical infrastructure despite the issue being discussed at last week’s peace talks in Abu
Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t want to go to Davos. Why bother showing up at the World Economic Forum to watch world leaders swarm around Donald Trump and his obsession with Danish-controlled Greenland? The Arctic spectacle has stolen the spotlight from the war in Ukraine, and Zelensky could not bear the thought of returning empty-handed while his
‘When the Ukrainian troops leave the territories they occupy, then the hostilities will cease,’ declared Vladimir Putin during his state visit to Kyrgyzstan yesterday. ‘If they do not leave, we will achieve it militarily.’ The Russian President did not specify which territories he expects Ukraine to abandon. Did he mean only the Donetsk region? Did
Standing outside his presidential office in Kyiv tonight, on the same spot as on the second day of Ukraine’s full-scale war with Russia, Volodymyr Zelensky addressed Ukrainians. He said he hadn’t betrayed the country then and wouldn’t do so now. Ukraine faces ‘one of the most difficult moments in our history’, he said, while the
Vladimir Putin’s hopes of wearing Ukraine down in a war of attrition are no longer far-fetched. The country feels fragile, like it did in February 2022. Back then, Ukrainians rallied behind a president who stayed and shared a conviction that victory was possible. Today many are wondering whether defeat and the end of Ukraine’s statehood
Since taking office in 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky’s decisions have often been a mix of blatant populism and good intentions. Today, however, a number of his domestic policies are seen in Ukraine less as acts of genuine support for the war-weary public and more as attempts to shore up his approval ratings. This year, just as
What matters more – land or the lives of soldiers? For each side fighting in Ukraine, the answer is different. For Vladimir Putin, every metre of captured Ukrainian soil is worth the lives of tens of thousands of Russians. For Kyiv, the priority is to stop the invaders while keeping casualties to a minimum. Ukraine’s
Zarah Sultana loves to pose as a champion of the working class, seeing the world through the lens of class struggle. Even, it seems, the war in Ukraine. In her latest interview, she calls Nato ‘an imperialist war machine’ and advocates for putting all our effort into ending the war, rather than making weapons, thereby
Donald Trump has at last lost patience with Vladimir Putin. He cancelled their anticipated meeting in Budapest after Putin refused to make a single concession on a ceasefire following their phone call last week. Having returned to the diplomatic stage only to derail the sale of American long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, Putin then ramped
For the fourth winter in a row, Vladimir Putin believes now is the time when Ukrainians will finally break. Russia’s campaign of systematic strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure has begun once again with the first cold winds. Last night, Putin unleashed nearly 500 Shahed drones, decoys and missiles against Ukraine, launched simultaneously at different
Russians living in the Belgorod region of Russia got a taste of what Ukrainians have been enduring for over three years of war last night, after they spent it without power, hot water or internet. Ukrainian forces set the Belgorod power plant ablaze with US-made Himars missiles after the Trump administration reportedly gave Kyiv the
Until recently, when Russian drones strayed into Nato airspace during mass attacks on Ukraine, fighter jets would scramble, not to shoot them down, but to watch. The allies tracked the drones as they flew across the Nato border, either jammed off course or deliberately redirected to confuse Ukrainian air defences. In both cases, if the
In all the speculation about when Russia might run out of money to fund its war in Ukraine, one fact has gone largely unnoticed: Ukraine’s pockets are emptying first. Kyiv has approved a draft State Budget for next year that devotes record sums for defence with a projected deficit of 18.4 per cent of GDP
When Volodymyr Zelensky was asked to describe the security guarantees finalised for Ukraine at the Coalition of the Willing summit in Paris yesterday, the word he reached for was ‘theoretical’. Theoretical guarantees for a theoretical ceasefire: 26 countries pledging, in theory, to support peace in Ukraine on land, sea and in the air after the
Relations between Ukraine and Hungary have soured once again after Robert Brovdi, the Ukrainian drone commander of Hungarian descent, struck the Druzhba pipeline several times this month. The latest attack on the Unecha pumping station on the pipeline in Russia’s Bryansk region choked off Russian oil supplies to Hungary for several days, until it was
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Svitlana Morenets says that Trump has given Zelensky cause for hope; Michael Simmons looks at how the American healthcare system is keeping the NHS afloat; Ursula Buchan explains how the Spectator shaped John Buchan; Igor Toronyi-Lalic argues that art is no place for moralising, as he reviews Rosanna McLaughlin;
On Volodymyr Zelensky’s last visit to the White House, he brought a gift: a championship belt from one of Ukraine’s boxing legends. But talks collapsed before the gift-giving stage. This time, he brought a golf club from a wounded soldier and a letter from Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, to Melania Trump. Donald Trump not
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What a difference six months makes. The last time Zelensky and Trump met in Washington we were mourning the end of America’s commitment to security in Europe and a new era of isolationism. But yesterday was a totally different story – and Zelensky deserves much of the credit for his change in tactics. Trump complimented
