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Ukrainian forces have penetrated the main Russian defensive line in their country’s southeast, raising hopes of a breakthrough that would reinvigorate the slow-moving counteroffensive. Ukrainian paratroopers are fighting through entrenched Russian positions on the edge of the village of Verbove, a Ukrainian officer in the area said. Ukrainian forces have also reached the main defensive line to the south of nearby Robotyne village, he said. Ukraine’s military confirmed advances toward Verbove and south of Robotyne, without giving details. Describing the advance, the Ukrainian officer held up three fingers representing lines of attack through entrenched Russian positions on the western flank...

Air-defense system is finally doing what it was designed for, 40 years later The missiles were coursing toward Kyiv, some as fast as six times the speed of sound and many heading directly for the crew’s missile battery. The Ukrainians didn’t panic, their commander said in an interview. They didn’t have time. Early that morning, May 16, the Patriot’s radar detected the missiles, including six Kinzhals, at a distance of about 125 miles. The system’s computer tracked the missiles and launched interceptors, destroying all of them, the last at a distance of about 9 miles—seconds before impact. “No one was...

KYIV, Ukraine—Outside the Giraffe shopping mall on the western edge of Ukraine’s capital, a group of locals prepared to meet the Russian armored column thundering their way. It was late February, and the Russians, from an elite airborne unit, were riding atop their vehicles, as if expecting a warm greeting. One wore a Cossack woolen hat instead of a helmet. Another hadn’t loaded his rifle. The few dozen Ukrainians from the towns of Irpin and Bucha had other intentions, which they had written on the cement mixer and bulldozer that blocked the road: “Welcome to hell.” After Russia launched an...

Ukraine’s military advanced as much as 30 miles in the country’s east and liberated more than 20 villages and towns, a senior commander said, in a rapid thrust aimed at cutting Russian supply routes. Brig. Gen. Oleksiy Hromov, a senior officer on Ukraine’s General Staff, gave the first official confirmation of the gains of an offensive launched Tuesday to the east of Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv.

Six months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, signs are accumulating that the balance on the military and economic battlefields is slowly tilting the way of Kyiv and its Western backers. ... Some results of the war already seem settled. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to rewrite the ending of the Cold War by restoring Moscow’s historic sphere of influence in Eastern Europe has failed. His war on Ukraine has instead united almost all of Europe against him, revivifying the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is poised to add Sweden and Finland as new members.

Russian invading forces are killing civilians and looting stores and homes, witnesses in Ukraine say Published: March 14, 2022 at 11:27 a.m. ET By Yaroslav Trofimov and James Marson Russia’s forces are arresting elected local leaders and seeking to replace them with Kremlin collaborators ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — Russian forces are killing civilians and looting stores and homes across occupied parts of southern Ukraine, residents said, as Moscow arrested elected local leaders and sought to replace them with pro-Russian collaborators. People arriving here from Russian-held areas over the weekend described hungry and undisciplined Russian troops shooting unarmed villagers, breaking into supermarkets...

<p>In recent days, Taliban representatives began telling gatherings of villagers in the southern province of Kandahar, one of the country’s main opium-producing regions, that the crop—a crucial part of the local economy—would now be banned.</p><p>This followed a statement by Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid at an Aug. 18 news conference in Kabul that the country’s new rulers won’t permit the drug trade. Mr. Mujahid at the time didn’t offer details of how the Islamist group intends to enforce the ban.</p>

...But Donetsk, one of the largest cities in eastern Ukraine, is missing one element that proved vital to the success of the Kiev protests in toppling Ukraine's pro-Russian president: people. Thousands of activists lived on Kiev's central square for three months, rising to tens of thousands at weekend rallies in the capital. By contrast, the movement here has never attracted more than a few thousand. Nowadays, the square in front of the assembly building often has only a few dozen stragglers. ...The west was the driving force behind Kiev protests that led to the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, a...