Ukraine Without Hype

Greetings Comrades! This is a crossover episode with the Eastern Border podcast where Anthony and Kristaps discuss their recent reporting trip to the city of Mykolaiv and the nearby frontlines. But first, a combat update regarding the rapid Ukrainian advances on both the Kharkiv and Kherson fronts. And a special thank you to our fixers at the Ukraine Frontline Media Platform. Twitter Anthony: @Bar...

It is a short-form on-the-road episode by Anthony Bartaway, but these are all developing stories that deserve more focus. First up, the Ukrainian advance in the Kharkiv region and northern Donbas is continuing to roll forward and retake occupied territory, but they are discovering all of the horrors seen in all recovered territory. Putin swaps high-profile Ukrainian POWs for his flunky Medvedchuk....

While the Russian army was focused on defending its holdings in Kherson, Ukraine pulled off a stunning offensive to the east of Kharkiv. In less than a week, the Russian garrison in the Izyum salient completely disintegrated, leading to them abandoning Kharkiv Oblast to the west of the Oskil River. This offensive has not stopped, so this episode may become immediately out of date - in the time bet...

This episode is dedicated both to Ukraine's Independence Day and the 6th-month anniversary of the war that threatens that independence. In our news round-up we cover: 00:00:45 - The combat update, including the long-awaited kinetic phase of the Kherson Offensive. 00:19:00 - Russia has been staging continuous provocations at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant that threaten a meltdown. The IAEA ha...

In a brief news update, Russia focuses its efforts in Donbas on the Donetsk suburb of Pisky, which guards the way to the vital strategic Ukrainian fortress-city of Avdiivka. On the Kherson front, the Russian army pours into the region in order to forestall a Ukrainian offensive, but by doing so put themselves in an extremely logistically precarious position. This is helped by Ukraine, somehow, blo...

In a brief news update, Russia shifts away from the Sloviansk front to Avdiivka in Donbas, while building up its defenses against the awaited Ukrainian offensive in Kherson. Meanwhile, they continue their intense missile strike campaign, especially against Mykolaiv and are suspected of an unusual mass execution in a prison camp in Olenivka. Then, we speak with Sarah Ashton, an American journalist...

Ukraine struck a deal to secure its grain exports, but Russian perfidy meant Moscow broke the agreement almost immediately. Following the end of the battle for Lysychansk, fighting on the front lines has slowed considerably, though that is very relative. Russia has not made any advances since then, and its artillery attacks are far less frequent. This is thanks in large part to the devastating eff...

A rapid Russian advance finishes off the long battle for Luysychansk, allowing them to occupy the entirety of Luhansk Oblast. The Battle for Donbas shifts westward to the Seversk/Bakhmut line. Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces continue to make grinding progress around Kherson and Zaporizhia and force Russia to abandon Snake Island. Next, we discuss the protests in the Karakalpakstan region of Uzbekistan...

A rapid Russian offensive captures territory around Lysychansk, leading to the Ukrainian withdrawal from Severodonetsk, with a tough fight still to come. The Ukrainian parliament ratifies the Istanbul Convention, a landmark treaty against domestic and gendered violence. Ukraine is granted European Union candidate status, paving the way for future membership. It has been the dream of a generation o...

Severodonetsk becomes the centerpiece of the war, as fierce urban fighting claims hundreds of lives. Russian cruise missiles destroy a Kyiv civilian railcar repair plant in the first strike on the city in a month, increasing the difficulty of Ukraine's ability to export grain. Three foreign-born fighters are sentenced to death by the Russian puppet authorities in Donetsk. We go over who these men...

Brief news update: While Russia advances through the streets of Sieverodonetsk, Ukraine breaks through enemy lines in an offensive on the Kherson region. The US agrees to send Ukraine a new type of long-range rocket artillery after some very confusing negotiations. The branch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine breaks away from Moscow and its future is uncertain. (08:00) We have an inte...

Anthony Bartaway goes over the latest updates from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (1:00) The fears of Russian general mobilization on Victory Day proved to be false. (1:40) The defenders of Mariupol finally surrender, and their future is uncertain. (4:30) The Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kharkiv successfully drives Russian forces away from the city, in some places straight to the border. (7:50...

The Russian offensive in Donbas becomes bogged down outside of Izyum and Sievierodonetsk, with only minor forward progress since our last update. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces take the initiative around Kharkiv and score more hits against the Russian Navy and its positions on occupied Snake Island in the Black Sea. Russia's effort to rope Transnistria into a suicidal war is subsiding, but still some...

The Battle for Donbas rages on as the Russian army tries desperately to encircle Ukrainian forces in the east, while the defenders of Mariupol make their last stand in the ruins of the sprawling Azovstal metallurgical plant. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army presses in on Russian-occupied territory in the East from Kharkiv and the West toward Kherson. Ukraine has begun receiving shipments of heavy wea...

Russian soldiers have retreated from northern Ukraine and will try to re-focus on Donbas, but what they left behind is a path of destruction that must be called a genocide. There have been multiple statements from the Russian government showing genocidal intent, and that intent was followed with action. Evidence of mass murder and other crimes is found in nearly every location that Russia occupied...

Anthony Bartaway and Romeo Kokriatski talk about the current situation in the Russo-Ukraine War. Russian advances around Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv have been stopped by Ukrainian defenders, but have been replaced with artillery fire and rocket strikes. Along the Black Sea coast, the Russian army has been turned away from Mykolaiv, but is committing horrible war crimes to try and break Mari...

The state of the Russo-Ukraine War as it stood on March 5th. Russia is making gains in the South, but stalling out in the North, leading to their increased reliance on indiscriminate bombardments of civilian areas. While the Russian army is suffering from low morale and poor logistics, the Ukrainian people rally to defend their homes. We go into some of the important topics that come up so far, su...

Short emergency episode: the long-feared war has come. https://twitter.com/HypeUkraine https://www.patreon.com/UkraineWithoutHype

Russia begins a barrage of both artillery fire and misinformation to drum up any excuse to go to war. Their claimed "troop withdrawal" turned out to be just another misdirection. Diplomatic efforts to calm the situation continue to fail. The Russian legislature asks Putin to recognize the occupation authorities in Donbas as sovereign nations, but is rebuffed for now. A Russian cyber attack brings...

New Patreon page, so please help us spread the news about Ukraine: https://www.patreon.com/UkraineWithoutHype Ukraine and its allies continue to try to head off the possible Russian offensive, but there is tension between Kyiv and Washington over how severe the threat may be. Then, in local news, a mass shooting by a National Guardsmen of his fellow soldiers and a corruption scandal at the Chornob...

As the Russian military buildup continues on the Ukrainian border, diplomats from Ukraine, Russia, the UK, and the EU meet to avert catastrophe - to little effect thus far. A likely Russian or Belarusian-based hack of multiple Ukrainian government-connected websites was mostly just an inconvenience. But, it highlights the years-long trends of both cyber warfare and using false flags to try and hur...

The New Year is right around the corner and our last episode of the year is a big one. Anthony Bartaway talks about what he saw and heard in some of the conflict-affected places in Donbas. Then he and Romeo Kokriatski get into the weeds about the likelihood of a renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine. The episode wraps up with news of former President Petro Poroshenko being accused of treason and how...

After a far too long August hiatus, Ukraine Without Hype is Back. Anthony Bartaway runs down some of the top news stories that we missed while we were away. These include the current Russian military buildup, Belarus spurring on a migrant crisis, an update on the Nordstream 2 pipeline, the end of the war in Afghanistan and Ukraine's role in evacuating refugees, Zelensky's bizarre presser and how i...

For the August 3rd edition of Ukraine Without Hype, Romeo Kokriatski and Anthony Bartaway go over the large-scale personnel changes at the top of the Ministries of Defense and Internal Affairs, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian military. Most of the attention goes to the newly-minted Minister of Internal Affairs Denys Monastyrsky. Then, on to a recent law that protects the rights...

For the July 21st edition of Ukraine Without Hype, Romeo Kokriatski and Anthony Bartaway go over a bombshell story from the week: the irreplaceable Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has finally been replaced. Then, we cover how Ukraine is implementing one of the reforms most demanded from international partners: the opening up of agricultural land for purchase, something that was previously banned. F...