KYIV, Ukraine — Her phone was blinking nonstop from incoming messages. Friends and colleagues were sending Myroslava the same TikTok video with her face and personal information, accusing her of crimes for being part of the Territorial Conscription Centers that lead mobilization for the military draft in Ukraine.

The comment section was full of phrases like “shoot her” and “send her to the front line.” Myroslava was being accused of justifying the beatings of civilians by military recruiters.

“I’m made out to be a monster, like I’m a criminal against my own people…They even posted my full name, mentioned articles of the criminal code they say I should be charged under,” said Myroslava Liashuk, head of the Communications Group of Vinnytsia Territorial Conscription Center (TCC) and Social Support in central-western Ukraine.

A screenshot from a TikTok video with accusations against Myroslava, saying that she “justified the beating and abduction of civilians,” “the TCC’s attacks on civilians,” “the abduction of a blogger and his political persecution,” hitting 384,000 views.

Myroslava’s story is not an isolated case, and is an example of an unresolved conflict that has long been brewing in society between civilians and the military.

Recruiters who serve at the Territorial Conscription Centers, of which there are more than 200 main centers across the country, have to meet mobilization quotas to compensate for fallen soldiers and to be able to carry out rotations on the front lines. This is where a vicious cycle starts. The TCCs, whose work is poorly monitored, can sometimes exceed their authority and aggressively round up civilians who are evading military service. Since 2022, nearly 12,000 complaints regarding violations of human rights during mobilization have been submitted to the human rights commissioner of the Rada, which in turn undermines society’s motivation to serve.

The tension recently escalated to a number of violent attacks from both sides, one of which resulted in a territorial recruiter who was stabbed to death by a civilian. Such tensions reveal the fragile state of polarized Ukrainian society, which is at a crossroads between fear of mobilization and the risk of losing its independence.

Zelenskyy long avoided commenting on the situation with the TCCs and the struggle to sufficiently mobilize Ukrainians. The Counteroffensive reached out to the president for comment,s but at the time of publication, he has not responded.

The president has recently announced reforms in mobilization, such as increasing salaries and clearer terms of service, aimed at easing tensions. The timeline, though, remains uncertain.

“Right now, a lot of men are hiding. As unfortunate as it is to admit, in 2022–2023, those who wanted to [join the army voluntarily] already did that,” said Myroslava Liashuk.

Myroslava has been serving in the military for 17 years. She first got involved in the field during her university years, starting out as a cadet. She had a quite simple motivation. In school, Myroslava was bullied by her classmates. She had always wanted to learn how to stand up for herself.

When she saw female students wearing uniforms with stars on their shoulders at Kharkiv Air Force University, her mind sparked with realization: this was her chance to gain strength.

In 2009, she signed a contract with the Armed Forces.

“My mother thought I’d last maybe two months — that I’d call home begging, ‘please, take me away from here.’” recalled Myroslava.

In 2016, she encountered the harsh realities of war when she joined the Kharkiv-based 92nd Brigade. She fought there against Russian forces in the trenches, often without rotations for up to ten months. The hardest part was spending holidays on the front line because Russians liked to ‘greet’ Ukrainians at the front on special occasions. That’s why New Year’s nights were always marked by the heaviest shelling, Myroslava said.

But when the full-scale war started in 2022, Myroslava found herself facing a personal dilemma, choosing between devoting herself to her newborn child and to continuing to serve on the front line. She settled on a middle ground: taking her son to kindergarten, attending morning briefings, setting daily tasks, and monitoring incoming reports and news.

Last summer, she became the head of communications at the Vinnytsia local territorial recruitment center and also served as part of the mobilization notification group, accompanying military recruiters to go out and mobilize civilians.

“At that time, notification groups mainly operated at checkpoints. Vehicles were stopped and checks were conducted,” she recalled.

After Ukraine introduced martial law in February 2022 and general mobilization for men 25–60 years old, TCCs played a key role in upholding this system. TCC offices are modernized versions of old military enlistment offices that keep records, process recruits, and organize deployment, handling around 90 percent of mobilization tasks today.

The conscription process begins with receiving a draft notice, which is delivered in person, primarily by military recruiters, who may approach individuals at home, at work, or in public places, including checkpoints, often alongside police officers. Notices can also come as a letter via the postal office.

The notice specifies the date and time when the person liable for military service must appear at their local TCC. From there, next steps will be determined — either updating personal records such as marital status and place of residence or undergoing a military medical examination to determine fitness for military service.

The need for recruitment is quite clear: soldiers who are still serving without defined service terms need to be replaced, at least for rotations. Over the past six months, Ukraine has been meeting its minimum mobilization targets, though with “great difficulty.” The Ministry of Defense says nearly two million men are evading military service.

The personnel shortage is felt most acutely by soldiers who have been on the front line for a long time.

“For infantry it’s almost universally common for them to spend a month on position at a time,” said John*, a foreign military volunteer whose name was changed for security purposes. His unit has not undergone rotation since October 2025 — over seven months already. “Those units with poor management suffer some of the worst manpower shortages,” said John.

Isolated reports and public discussions about the abuse of power and misconduct in the mobilization process had already started emerging in 2022 and 2023. However, in April and May, 2026, a few cases involving TCC members became especially infamous.

In late April, in Odesa, TCC personnel were reported to have forcibly pushed people into official minibusses and, in one case, demanded a man pay $30,000 or they send him to the frontline.

The next day, the State Bureau of Investigation announced allegations of TCC servicemen torturing civilians, leaving one with a gunshot wound.

Although the pre-trial investigation is still ongoing and other individuals involved are being identified, the offenders are already facing serious charges, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

There are financial scandals, too. Earlier in May, police carried out searches at territorial recruitment centers in 16 regions, investigating alleged illicit enrichment totaling more than 92 million hryvnias (about 2 million USD).

“TCC is, in a certain way, a force-based structure; they felt their power over the people who were brought in… There was a certain sense of impunity within the TCC at that time,” said Oleksii, who is working at a medical commission examining people’s health for military service (his full name is withheld for security reasons).

Moreover, there were complaints by Ukrainian brigades that newly mobilized soldiers sometimes have poor health conditions and are unfit for service.

Oleksii said that TCCs could bring “those struggling with drug addiction, alcohol intoxication, or serious illnesses such as HIV or tuberculosis” for the military medical commission.

“There was a case when TCCs were sprayed with pepper spray. Some people were brought in after serious fights in the street. So both the TССs and the civilians would arrive beaten up, and the person often needed additional medical help because they were not fit to go through the medical commission,” Oleksii said.

The Counteroffensive could not verify those claims independently. However, there has been an unprecedented rise of civilian violence against military recruiters recently.

In April, a 56-year-old man stabbed a recruitment officer in the abdomen in Kharkiv. The injured officer was hospitalized, and the attacker was detained three hours later. The suspect faces up to 12 years in prison.

In the same month, in the Rivne region of northwestern Ukraine, during a document check, a man opened fire with an automatic weapon on servicemen and a police officer.

On May 9, a civilian man in Lviv discharged pepper spray, then seized a young girl who happened to be passing by and held a knife to her throat merely at the sight of TCC servicemen who had not approached him.

The next day, in the Odesa region in southern Ukraine, a man attacked a notification patrol group, inflicting multiple knife wounds while being escorted to a Territorial Recruitment Center.

“There are [always] videos, recorded by a civilian on a mobile phone. Not even the full picture of what happened, just a fragment. And usually, everyone sees only the moment when a clash has already started. No one sees how the situation actually began,” said Myroslava, reflecting on accusations of TCC abuse.

Myroslava noted that under the procedure for conducting mobilization notification, police officers who are carrying weapons are required to be present, while recruitment officers are not allowed to carry weapons themselves, and are instead provided with body cameras.

According to Myroslava, when unlawful actions are committed by a TCC service member or when the requirements of the military statutes are violated, offenders are held accountable through disciplinary proceedings.

In January 2026, in the district where Myroslava serves, a TCC member was implicated in corruption.

“She allegedly demanded a bribe in exchange for arranging compensation payments to the family of a fallen soldier. An official investigation was launched, she was suspended from her position, and further investigative actions are currently underway,” said Myroslava.

On the flip side, Russia actively takes advantage of gaps in the Ukrainian system in its information warfare, aiming to fuel internal divisions among Ukrainians. Staged or AI-generated videos are also being spread via anonymous Telegram channels and TikTok pages to disrupt mobilization efforts, aiming to weaponize fear and deepen the crisis.

“It all shapes public perception. People are paying attention, and many are already afraid,” said Myroslava.

Earlier this month, Zelenskyy announced plans to raise soldiers’ salaries, implement specific service time limits, and regulate mobilization procedures.

However, there are concerns about whether Ukrainian institutions can address the growing backlog of problems without dragging the process out for months, which already happened with the previous reform. Mobilization problems can quickly become toxic’ for one’s political image, which is why parties do not want to take personal responsibility for resolving them.

Today, according to Oleksii, recruitment offices are largely staffed by soldiers who have already served on the front line or have combat experience.

This shift has also changed the approach: staff, having served themselves, now tend to communicate more clearly, explain procedures such as medical commissions, and emphasize that candidates are not sent directly to the front line. People are also more often given the opportunity to choose the brigade they join.

“Time has changed, people have run out. No one wants to go [to the frontline],” said Myroslava.

NEWS OF THE DAY:

By Kateryna Antonenko

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

FORMER HEAD OF PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE CHARGED WITH CORRUPTION: The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) have officially charged Andrii Yermak with laundering 460 million UAH through luxury construction projects near Kyiv. The charges follow a series of investigative actions, including a search of his residence on November 28, 2025. Shortly after, on January 2, President Zelenskyy dismissed Yermak from his position as Head of the President’s Office. There are, six more suspects whose names are still unknown. The participants laundered money through the construction of a cottage town near Kyiv in the village of Kozyn.

ZELENSKY ANNOUNCED UKRAINE WILL GET €90 BILLION IN JUNE: This money will be used to purchase and produce weapons, pay social assistance, and prepare the energy sector for the winter, according to Zelensky. Back in March 2026, Hungary and Slovakia blocked this aid.

NEGOTIATIONS UNDERWAY TO EXCHANGE POW 1000 FOR 1000: The list was formed in accordance with the period that the prisoners have been in captivity, with the longest-kept gaining priority. U.S. acts as a mediator in the negotiation process. Russia proposed to include children in the lists, which Ukraine did not accept. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga commented that the freedom of children is unconditional, so their inclusion in the exchange lists, as proposed by Moscow, is absolutely impossible. Since the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Russia has abducted and forcibly deported more than 20,500 children from the occupied territories.

END OF THREE-DAY CEASEFIRE: Russia ended the temporary ceasefire, which lasted from May 8 to 11, by launching more than 200 drones at civilian infrastructure. The “ceasefire” didn’t hold across the whole country — on the front, strikes continued. President Zelensky noted that Ukraine had fulfilled the conditions of the ceasefire and refrained from long-range strikes deep into Russia; he also added that in the future, Ukraine would respond in kind.

DOG OF THE WAR:

A cute dog waits while its owner orders a coffee at a Kyiv coffee shop.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Anastasiia

KYIV, Ukraine — Four homes. A baby boy kicks his little legs for the first time, standing with support. A girl builds yet another tower from her blocks. Elsewhere, a six-year-old girl creates a LEGO cat — only for the real cat, Kompot, to later see it as a rival. In the last one, a girl quietly draws another picture.

This is how children of mothers working for The Counteroffensive spend their days, like any other child , they are endlessly curious about the world around them. They ask why the sky is blue, why people need to work, why the sun disappears at night and why people argue.

Yet nothing prepares you as a mother to explain a war to your child.

Mother’s Day, celebrated on May 10, is an international holiday, usually filled with bouquets of flowers, warm sunlight, children’s handmade cards, and cheerful local events. It is a day meant to highlight care, gratitude, and the quiet strength of mothers everywhere.

Motherhood itself has always come with challenges and social judgments. Mothers are often told how to behave, as if there is only one correct way to be a ‘good mother.’ But in Ukraine, these long-standing pressures are intensified by the realities of war. The ongoing violence adds new layers of fear and responsibility, testing Ukrainian mothers every single day in ways that go far beyond ordinary expectations.

Nastia, mom of a 2-year-old daughter

The first hard question I faced during the war was when my two-year-old daughter started asking about the winter blackouts: “Mom, where is the light?”

I was puzzled and could only come up with a clumsy explanation. “It was taken by a man… but it will come back soon. Don’t worry, we will turn on our flashlights.”

“Why did they take the light?”

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Things are not going well for Russia’s 72 hour special military operation.

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Editor’s Note:

It’s Friday, 10 pm in Kyiv, and as our team prepares to take shelter during a threatening weekend, the news of a ceasefire is breaking. This is personal for us, and we always keep you in the loop, no matter what.

If you support our on-the-ground journalism, subscribe to read our stories without any restrictions.

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Trump announced a 3-day ceasefire after Zelenskyy and Putin spent days trading threats over possible strikes on Moscow’s Victory Day parade and retaliatory attacks on Kyiv. The ceasefire is set to last from May 9 through May 11.

Both sides have confirmed their agreement.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Free healthcare, apartments, school lunches, and the promise of equality. Those ideas start to resonate more and more with young people in Western countries who are completely fed up with student debt, unaffordable rent, and medical bills.

Their shelves are lined with copies of Marx’s Das Kapital. A red hammer-and-sickle flag hangs on the wall. They debate Lenin’s ideas with friends. But the thing is: they never lived under real communism.

My ancestors did, and one of them was killed by the Soviet regime.

This Saturday, the same red flags bearing the hammer and sickle will be unfurled not only in the homes of Western youth but also on Moscow’s Red Square, where a military parade will celebrate May 9, Russia’s Victory Day over Nazi Germany. It is the biggest annual holiday for Russians, as it is a chance to unite society around the image of a ‘great victorious power.’ While much of the world observes the day in mourning and remembrance, Russia uses this occasion to showcase its military might and associate itself with the ‘glory’ of a Soviet past.

For democracies around the world, nazi symbols and ideology remain deeply taboo, with some countries even criminalizing their promotion. Yet communism, despite its own long history of terror, mass executions, genocides and repressions, is still treated with far less stigma. Especially by those who never lived under a communist regime.

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KYIV, Ukraine — If Oleksandr and Viktor happened to cross paths, they would probably not get along on this one issue.

Both of them have seen the war firsthand and have held weapons in their hands, but their views sharply diverge: should Ukrainians be allowed to carry them in everyday life?

Oleksandr, who was once categorically opposed to the idea, now fully supports the right to bear arms for civilians.

Viktor, on the other hand, realized after serving in the army that owning a gun is not as simple as it seems from the outside.

The mass shooting in Kyiv on April 18, which left seven people dead and as many injured, has once again split society on whether the Ukrainian government should legalize civilian firearms for self-defense, and if the risks of legalization are worth it.

Broad discussions about legalizing firearms for civilians have been held since 2022. Since the mass shooting, the dispute is more serious than at any time in Ukrainian history.

A total game-changer that pushed the discussion beyond social media to the ministry cabinets was the footage, which emerged shortly after the Kyiv terrorist act. It revealed that two police officers immediately fled the crime scene after a man who opened fire with a rifle, leaving the injured, including a child, completely helpless.

Witness footage captures the moment a police officer flees the scene. YouTube, 24 Channel.

Such a lack of readiness by law enforcement and public outrage effectively prompted the government to prepare for potential changes in legislation, as it currently prohibits civilian ownership of handguns.

Ukrainian society is grappling with a pressing dilemma: would legal firearms help to regulate gun circulation, or would they simply turn isolated terrorist acts into frequent news?

Oleksandr Klymchuk was among the first to stand up for his country. He had no weapon, no helmet, and no body armor, just like many other volunteers in Kyiv, but that didn’t stop him.

Before the war, Oleksandr was against civilian guns because there was no foundation for it: no sufficient number of training centers, no instructors, no explanation of legal responsibility.

However, the first days of the full-scale invasion has crossed out the old arguments. In February 2022, Ukraine handed out weapons to anyone ready to defend their country, allowing civilians to use weapons against the occupiers without any liability. In the first two days, more than 25,000 weapons were distributed in the capital, along with 10 million rounds of ammunition. Some analysts believe such a move halted the Russian advance on Kyiv. The Ukrainian national police claim there were no crimes committed using those weapons.

Oleksandr thinks that if Ukrainian civilians had their own legal weapons prior to the invasion it could have helped prevent some deaths in Kyiv’s suburbs in 2022, which became the sites of horrific massacres and war crimes.

“With a weapon in their hands, a person has a chance. If someone told me, ‘the Russians will come now, you are under occupation, they will simply make you kneel and shoot you, or you will take one or two enemies with you,’ I would definitely choose the second. Even a one percent chance of getting out of the encirclement with a weapon is better than not having one,” Oleksandr said.

His reflection closely echoes that of people who began speaking out in favor of legalization after the terrorist act several weeks ago. Witnessing how no one was able to stop the shooter in Kyiv for an hour led many to start wondering: would it have been possible to save the victims if at least some of the people had been armed?

When Oleksandr came across the terror act, his first thought was that veterans should be allowed to carry firearms.

“Legally, everyone has the right to defend their life, but in practice, it works differently: if you kill an attacker, you immediately become a suspect in a criminal case. The police and prosecutors work based on the fact of death, often ignoring the intent or the circumstances of self-defense,” Oleksandr said, explaining why Ukraine needs to review its legal approach.

Oleksandr points to a legal absurdity; at the front, he was entrusted with complex equipment and any caliber, but in civilian life, he again becomes “unreliable.”

The argument for legalization of handguns is also driven by the reality of the massive amount of unregistered weapons currently circulating due to the war, the approximate number of which remains unknown even to the officials. Advocates suggest that a formal legal framework would allow the state to better monitor and control these arms rather than leaving them in the shadows.

While most EU countries have consistently tightened firearm restrictions over the past decade, the Czech Republiс іs often brought as an example of a country which could successfully merge a right of self-defense and low crime rates, which Ukraine could follow.

Despite having over 1.1 million registered firearms, the Czech Republic consistently ranks among the top 15 safest countries in the world according to the Global Peace Index. The key to this result has been a combination of a high level of gun ownership culture and rigorous digital oversight of every owner.

After a mass shooting at a university in Prague in December 2023, which claimed 14 lives, the Czech Republic did not restrict guns but created a direct digital link between medical institutions and the police through a registry. It allowed instant tracking of the mental health status of gun owners. Additionally, the police could seize weapons if a person was, for example, making threats on social media.

With Ukraine having one of the world’s most digitalized public services, pro-gun Ukrainians like Oleksandr believe that it is possible to regulate firearms more effectively.

Besides, Oleksandr appeals to the fact that the market itself will regulate training; stores and shooting ranges are interested in creating courses, and the state only needs to control “the rules of the game.”

However, not everyone who has gone through the fire of war shares this optimism — Victor’s experience, having held the same weapon in other circumstances, led him to radically opposite conclusions.

Viktor Oliinyk joined the military a year and a half ago when he went to the military recruitment office to update his records because his existing draft deferral was nearing expiration.

He was informed that his time to serve would come soon and was offered the chance to choose a specific unit. Understanding that his turn to defend the country was inevitable, Viktor decided to take the initiative. He joined a mobile fire group because he felt it was a vital role.

A mobile fire group is a specialized air-defense unit consisting of 5 to 12 personnel operating from high-speed pickup trucks. Armed with heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft cannons, or MANPADS, Oleksandr and his comrades effectively intercept Shaheds at low altitudes, providing vital protection for critical infrastructure in Odesa Region.

Viktor is convinced that civilians often romanticize gun ownership, failing to account for the psychological state of a society that has lived through four years of war.

Statistics support his fears: the number of PTSD cases continued rising in Ukraine, as well as the level of domestic violence in the country. There is a suggested correlation between these figures and PTSD among veterans. Approximately 60 percent of domestic violence cases are linked specifically to military personnel returning from the front.

According to some reports, the presence of a firearm in the home during conflicts between a couple increased the risk of domestic violence in the U.S. Around 901 women are fatally shot by an intimate partner each year and 70 percent of all female intimate partner homicide victims are killed specifically with a firearm. Moreover, in states with the most liberal gun carry laws, the number of mass shootings is not lower. On the contrary, easier access to weapons often plays into the hands of the attackers themselves.

Moreover, Viktor thinks having weapons never guarantees real defense against the attacker:

“[My acquaintance] went through training with an instructor and bought a… pistol for self-defense. But when she was attacked on the street right in front of her house, she simply didn’t have time to draw it. She was lucky she didn’t: the attacker was much larger, and had she missed, he would have simply wrestled the weapon away and could have shot her herself.”

According to an FBI analysis of active shooter incidents over the last 20 years, armed civilians intervened and successfully stopped attackers in only up to 6 percent of cases. In the vast majority of situations, shooters are stopped by the police or commit suicide before law enforcement arrives.

What is more, the man who committed the terrorist attack possessed officially registered weapons, suggesting that for now Ukrainian law enforcements can’t guarantee that guns will end up in the hands of an adequate person.

“Today’s system in Ukraine is very complex. It is somewhere in balance, and somewhere this system works… [For now] the state does not have trust in the people, and the people do not have trust in the state,” reflected Viktor.

NEWS OF THE DAY:

By Serafima Melnychuk

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

ARMENIA HOSTS KEY EU SUMMIT: Tuesday marks the first-ever Armenian-EU bilateral summit in Armenia, marking an important development in Armenian diplomacy. This comes just after the first European Political Community summit held in Armenia.

Since 2023, when Russia did nothing to stop Azerbaijan regaining full control of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia has moved to distance itself from Russia and built stronger relations with the EU, pushing for EU membership.

PUTIN, ZELENSKYY PROPOSED DATES FOR VICTORY DAY TRUCE: On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a two-day ceasefire in Ukraine for May 8–9. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded by proposing the night of May 5–6.

Putin had earlier mentioned the possibility of a truce for the holidays after speaking with President Donald Trump by phone, ahead of celebrations marking the 81st anniversary of the Soviet triumph in World War II.

289 DRONES HIT RUSSIAN REFINERY, TECH PLANT: The Russian VNIIR-Progress weapons factory in Cheboksary was on fire after a nighttime attack, Russian media reported.

On social media, images show thick smoke and raging flames emerging from the factory premises after a series of nearby explosions.

According to Ukraine’s General Staff, the factory that was attacked produces components that aid communications for Russian weapons.

RUSSIA RESTRICTS INTERNET IN RUN UP TO VICTORY DAY: On Tuesday, Russians in Moscow and St Petersburg reported disrupted mobile internet access as the government restricts access ahead of Victory Day, May 9th, when a parade commemorating the end of the Nazi occupation is set to take place. The Kremlin said that security concerns related to potential Ukrainian drone attacks were behind the new restrictions.

The Russian government has recently ramped up internet restrictions. The most recent crackdown is expected to impact SMS messaging and websites which were previously not restricted.

DOG OF WAR:

This is Dzyga. Zoriana and Nastia met her at Defense Tech Week in Kyiv. Her owner attended every event throughout the week with her, and she became the star of the show. Photo provided by the event organizers.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Kateryna

CARACAS, Venezuela – Gloria Morales was in Puerto La Cruz, a coastal city in Venezuela, when she heard a promise on her TV: the government would grant amnesty to all the people they had violated in the past 28 years.

The news came on January 8, 2026, less than a week after the U.S. military captured Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, the heads of Venezuela’s autocracy, to prosecute them for drug trafficking and international terrorism.

“As soon as I heard the news, I decided to travel to Caracas. I wanted to ensure my son’s freedom: a political prisoner of Maduro’s regime,” Gloria said.

It has been almost 4 months since the American military physically removed the Venezuelan president from power on January 3, 2026. Since then, Donald Trump has threatened to invade Greenland, continued to facilitate peace talks on the war in Ukraine, and, most recently, joined with Israel to launch a war against Iran. The world, and his administration, seem to have moved on from its hours-long operation in Caracas.

In reality, Delcy Rodriguez, the former vice president, took over the presidency. She is the leader of SEBIN, a Venezuelan intelligence agency, since 2018, and the former oil minister and economy minister until March 2026. Rodriguez has promised a better economy and a better judicial system. But Caracas has become the center of civil protest almost every day for the release of political prisoners and almost every week for higher wages and pensions.

The economy still has not recovered. And political prisoners who were promised amnesty once Maduro was removed from power are still waiting.

Going to Caracas was an easy decision for Gloria, but she came alone.

Gloria’s son, Rosmel Méndez, was arrested in 2020 because the regime accused him of a potential coup against Maduro, allegedly. They transferred him to Caracas, home to the only court that investigates cases of “terrorism” in the country. Six years have passed, and the judicial system has not given him a hearing.

Rosmel is not the only one: he and more than 450 people — children, women, and the elderly— are in similar situations, arrested without a hearing because the regime sees them, or someone they are connected to, as a threat.

Around 202 miles separated Puerto La Cruz and Caracas. Gloria traveled alone because her daughter-in-law had to take care of her two grandsons in their hometown, and her husband had to keep working in an economy whose inflation rose 400 percent in the last 3 months.

Now, she spends every night near El Helicoide — the ruins of a mall that the Maduro regime transformed into a torture center and the SEBIN headquarters — to demand a true democracy.

“I’ve gone to court multiple times, and they always tell me to give up. But I won’t. I won’t because there is a better chance for justice right now,” she said, surrounded by other mothers, and people, with similar stories, holding on to the promise of amnesty.

More than 115 days have passed since Delcy Rodríguez took power and the amnesty hasn’t reached Gloria’s son, alongside more than 500 women, men, and teens captured by the regime without due process.

Now, with the Venezuelan flag draped on her head and over her shoulders, Gloria started to modify some candles to brighten the incoming night.

“How many candles do we need? 100?” she asked her colleagues.

Some SEBIN officers surrounded Gloria and started recording her and her friends with their cellphones.

“No, no. It has to be more,” responded another woman, also a mother of a political prisoner. “We will write ‘100 days of dignity’ with those. We have more dignity than them.”

People were skeptical that the new Rodriguez administration would truly bring a better life to Venezuelans: it was true that political repression decreased in the last few months, but the same security forces are still detaining protesters for days or hours without warning.

“I was confident that the regime hadn’t changed when they disappeared my son for more than five months,” Gloria remembered, still moving around some candles. “On August 7 [2025], they took Rosmel from El Helicoide and transferred him and 31 other detainees to another prison: Fuerte Guaicaipuro.”

She paused her task and wiped a tear. Meanwhile, the rest of the family members of political prisoners wrote “freedom” on their shirts. Rosmel was in El Helicoide for five years before his transfer. He and 76 other civilians and military personnel have been imprisoned for a case of a presumed coup called “Operación Gedeón” since 2020.

All of those 76 detainees and Rosmel are now being denied the amnesty that was promised to them. Other political prisoners had been liberated with restrictions — like house arrest or monthly visits to court — and without any reparations.

“It wasn’t until February 12 that I received proof that Rosmel was still alive,” she remembered. “I only had 15 minutes to see him. I nearly cried when I saw his bruises and his yellow skin. He couldn’t tell me about his torture, but it was evident.”

As she spoke, in other prisons like Rodeo 1 and Tocuyito, the families of political prisoners were denouncing constant cases of torture since January 3. Gloria could only see her son that one time.

“The economic pressure is suffocating too,” she added. “Each family has to bring their medicine, their food, their clothes, our transportation… I’m crashing at a friend’s house in the meantime, because all of us that are protesting today have no income, even if we try to search for a job.”

Even though the government spent the last three months launching new legal instruments to expand its oil production and mining, the minimum wage is still less than, 27 cents a month, and is decreasing each day. A food basket costs the equivalent of 645 American dollars, according to the Federación Venezolana de Maestros, an association of multiple unions in the country.

“This stagnation is the same as previous years. I don’t think there is any improvement [with the interim president] right now,” Gloria said before she gathered with other civilians.

The protest was about to begin. A priest called all of them to walk and sing a prayer. The SEBIN blocked some of the perimeter: they didn’t want Gloria and her fellow marchers to be near El Helicoide’s entrance.

They returned to a spot where Gloria had been protesting all those 100 nights, putting up photos of her loved ones and lighting the candles.

At the dawn of day 101 after Rodriguez took the presidency, Gloria cleaned up all the wax and scraps of paper that the protest left behind with a broom to repeat the cycle.

“Now we are not afraid to protest again,” she said.

Many protests have taken place in Caracas since then: on social media, people are expecting the Supreme Court to announce elections — legally, the interim presidency only has 90 days to rule before the Venezuelan people have the right to vote in a new ruler. Separately, on April 30 and May 1, the teachers union protested again to increase the minimum wage and cut taxes.

Delcy Rodríguez increased some bonuses to 240 $ on April 30, but not the minimum wage per se; so teachers and nursery unions are still protesting until the real salary increases.

Even today, on May 3, the Venezuelan opposition of María Corina Machado summoned a new protest for the freedom of all political prisoners.

In the meantime, Delcy Rodríguez continues to change the law in order to facilitate foreign companies investing in Venezuela.

On April 23, Rodríguez outlawed the amnesty after 64 days since it was enacted. The interim president said that at least 8.000 people attended successfully, but Gloria and at least the family members of other 500 political detentees said otherwise.

“We will continue protesting. We will do it every night for the freedom of all Venezuelans and other syndicates will protest every day for a better economy,” Gloria said.

Every night, people gathers at El Helicoide and Rodeo 1 — the two main prisons and torture centers — and chant:

¡Justicia, justicia!

Justicia y libertad

Todos son inocentes, ninguno delincuente.

In English: Justice, justice! Freedom and rights, all of them are innocent; they are not delinquents.

NEWS OF THE DAY:

By Oleksandra Poda

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

BALLOON CROSSED BELARUS-UKRAINE BORDER CARRYING WEAPONRY TECH: On May 2, Ukrainian border guards detected a balloon that crossed the Belarus-Ukraine border, carrying a signal repeater, which can be used to aid communications for Russian weapons. Belarus has previously used balloons to violate the airspace of neighboring countries as part of its hybrid warfare.

Belarus is not officially at war with Ukraine, but has been actively aiding Russia since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022.

UKRAINE INTRODUCES MANDATORY ROTATION OF TROOPS: General Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has signed an order mandating the rotation of frontline troops. Now, a frontline soldier can remain in a position for no longer than 2 months, after which commanders must carry out a rotation within 1 month.

The decision was made following a scandal in which the command of the 14th Brigade failed to provide soldiers with sufficient food. Some Ukrainian soldiers have been in their positions for 502 days, according to Military Ombudsman Reshetilova.

UKRAINE STRUCK TWO RUSSIAN ‘SHADOW FLEET’ TANKERS: On May 3, the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in coordination with the Security Service of Ukraine, struck two tankers belonging to Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ near the entrance to the port of Novorossiysk. On the same day, Ukrainian drones attacked the Baltic port of Primorsk, Russia’s largest oil export terminal on the Baltic Sea, with a capacity of 1 million barrels per day.

At the same time, the U.S. continues to ease sanctions on Russian oil and turns a blind eye to Russia’s circumvention of sanctions via its ‘shadow fleet’. The Trump administration provided Ukraine with intelligence for this attack.

PERU INVESTIGATES RUSSIAN HUMAN TRAFFICKING MILITARY RECRUITMENT SCHEME: The Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation after Peruvians came forward claiming they had been tricked into fighting for Russia. Peruvian citizens, mostly former police officers and military personnel, claimed they were recruited on social media with offers of security guard jobs in Russia paying $2,000-3,000. Upon arrival in Russia, their passports were confiscated, and they were forcibly sent to the frontlines. At least 13 Peruvians have been killed while fighting in the war in Ukraine since 2022, and about 600 citizens may have traveled to Russia since October 2025. Families protested outside the Foreign Ministry building in Lima, demanding repatriation.

Russia has been recruiting foreigners for its army from at least 135 countries. As of March 30, Ukraine had identified 27,407 foreign nationals fighting on Russia’s side.

PARROT OF WAR:

Oleksandra met this adorable parrot Addie in a coffee shop on her way to see her therapist. She was stunned by this encounter and was late for her appointment.

Stay safe out there!

Best,
Joshua

You can see it in the eyes of those around us. The accumulated stress and constant sting of loss.

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Which of our articles did you like the most? And which one did you comment on the most? Spoiler: it was one of the most unexpected stories, but about one of the greatest miracles that can happen even during a war.

Read more

Brent crude, the international benchmark for purchasing oil, hit $126 per barrel — passing $120 for the first time since the start of the war. Prices were $73.93 at the outset of the conflict.

Read more

KYIV, Ukraine — In the early 2000s, I was still a kid. Every summer, my grandma and I would travel to visit her relatives in Tuapse, a city in southern Russia on the Black Sea’s coast.

We took the ‘platzkart,’ the cheapest sleeper train where strangers shared one open space with no compartments, and always brought our own bed linen because it cost us less that way. The train stopped at what felt like every small town along the way. With a border crossing, the journey stretched well past twenty-four hours.

My grandma Lilia looked forward to every summer, as the children had a holiday from school. She skimped on everything just to save up for this trip. Soon, she would see her sister, and they would spend the whole summer together, just like they used to when they were kids.

I had no idea that twenty years later, I would watch that same city burn and feel nothing but satisfaction.

Today I woke up to news that Ukrainian long-range drones had attacked Russian oil refineries in Tuapse for the third time in the past two weeks — the latest in a campaign that has shut down the plant, destroyed the majority of its storage tanks, and left Russia’s only Black Sea refinery incapacitated with no signs of recovering

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already said that Ukraine’s partners asked him to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries during the war in the Middle East. In their view, these strikes could further drive up the prices of oil and other energy resources, which have already reached record highs in recent months. The Ukrainian side, however, believes the impact on prices is limited because Russia still has restricted capacity to export its oil. So it will continue striking Russian oil, as this is one of the most effective ways to put pressure on Moscow.

At first glance, mockery and gloating over destruction deep inside Russia may seem cruel to many. But for me, it is the logical conclusion of a shattered identity — and a story about how war destroys not only homes but the very possibility of remembering anything good about the enemy.

Read more

KYIV, Ukraine — Yana Antoniuk comes to the Kyiv Sea to relax several times each summer. She celebrated her graduation, birthdays, and bachelorette party here.

The Kyiv Sea has become her substitute for the real sea, since she hasn’t left the Kyiv region during the war.

Locals call the Kyiv Reservoir the ‘Kyiv Sea’ — it’s so vast that when you stand on one shore, you can’t see the other.

This seemingly peaceful spot hides a significant danger at the bottom.

The Kyiv Reservoir is part of the Dnipro River cascade, a water source for millions of people, and an ecosystem that stretches to the Black Sea across several countries. On April 26, 1986, 40 years ago, an explosion occurred at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

After the reactor explosion, radioactive dust and particles rose into the air and were carried hundreds of kilometers away. What settled over the water fell into rivers and ended up in the Dnipro River cascade. The Pripyat River, which flows through the exclusion zone, carried the contamination directly into the Kyiv Reservoir. There, the particles settled to the bottom and remained there.

Official sources say there is no cause for concern as long as the sediment remains at the bottom. The main thing is to not disturb it.

But the war poses a particular threat to the stability of radioactive sediments.

For example, in 2024, Russia struck the Vyshhorod Hydroelectric Power Plant — the dam that directly holds back this reservoir.

If the dam of the Kyiv Reservoir collapses, radioactive particles will enter the water system and carry dangerous contaminants downstream along the Dnipro River, increasing the radiation risk to plants, animals, and millions of people.

Yana was born in Kyiv into a well-off family. Every summer, she and her family would go on vacation to Crimea and Odesa, in southern Ukraine. Not all Ukrainians had the opportunity to visit these resort areas, and many of them never got to see Crimea before its annexation.

Yana enjoyed sitting on the shore of the Black Sea, watching the sun set, and feeling the water tickle her heels. It felt like she owned the world during those peaceful moments.

The war cut Yana off from her favorite places along the Black Sea coast. After 2013, she never returned to Crimea, leaving behind places dear to her heart and countless friends. After 2022, she stopped traveling even to Odesa.

“I’m a very anxious person. I’m afraid of explosions, and it’s much easier for me to cope with things like that in the familiar surroundings of my home,” Yana said.

Yana’s desire for quiet getaways close to water never went away, though. As an accountant, she finds work exhausting. When she has the chance to take a few extra days off or a vacation, she gives her brain a break from the digital noise.

“I usually don’t even leave Kyiv; I go to the beaches here. But if I do manage to get away, the Kyiv Sea is truly the best place,” Yana said.

Yana had never wondered what lay hidden at the bottom of the Kyiv Reservoir.

The Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant explosion, 40 years ago tomorrow, was the worst nuclear disaster in human history. A cloud of radioactive particles was released into the atmosphere, covering a significant part of Europe.

What settled in the water, rivers, and soil remains there to this day. The same applies to the Kyiv Reservoir, located just 80 miles from Chornobyl.

The IAEA recommends leaving the contaminated sediments undisturbed; keeping them in place is the only barrier between the accumulated radioactivity and the water used by millions of people downstream. This strategy holds until the first major disturbance: a flood, a prolonged drought, dredging, or something worse.

In other words, sediments that were lying at the bottom rise to the surface and dry out. Radioactive dust could then rise into the air, be washed into the water by rain, or seep into the soil. What was previously trapped underwater becomes accessible to the environment.

Professor Timothy Mousseau, who spent more than 25 years studying Chornobyl and the effects of radiation on biological organisms, lives thousands of kilometers away from this shore, but he has been thinking about exactly these kinds of risks for decades. Yana lives right nearby and knows almost nothing about them.

Even before the full-scale invasion, there were attempts to clean up the Kyiv Reservoir, not to improve the security of the area, but to ensure navigability.

Back then, an independent study by the French organization ACRO found that 28 million people downstream, who depend on the Dnipro for water and food, could face increased radiation risks if dredging continued. The work eventually stopped. But this precedent shows that even peaceful, planned intervention in these sediments is recognized by the international community as an unacceptable risk.

War introduces a far more violent kind of disturbance.

Mousseau and his team arrived in the exclusion zone in 2022, shortly after the area had been liberated by Ukrainian forces. He got a lab and house there, had equipment and ongoing studies. He believes that if you don’t show up regularly, nothing gets done.

“Many mines were laid underground throughout the area, including where we do our fieldwork. Being in this war zone was very scary, with the sirens going constantly and drones flying over,” Mousseau said.

And although Russian troops have physically withdrawn from the Chornobyl zone, they continue to pose a radiation threat to the Ukrainian population – if they attack the dam, it could be catastrophic.

Yana doesn’t really believe there’s much risk of a radiation threat, but just in case, she bought some iodine supplements to protect herself: “It won’t save me if they [the Russians] do decide to use nuclear weapons, but it makes me feel more at ease.”

Mousseau isn’t so optimistic.

“If the dam were destroyed or damaged, that would dramatically increase the water flow from the Chornobyl region, stir up the sediments, and have the possibility of moving these radioactive sediments closer to Kyiv,” Mousseau said.

The stronger and faster the current, the more contaminated silt it can transport hundreds of kilometers in a short time.

This is exactly how, after 1986, traces of cesium and strontium reached as far as the Black Sea — the river and the current did their job.

In 2023, a very similar incident had already occurred: two explosions destroyed the Kakhovka Dam — a three-kilometer-long hydraulic structure on the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine. Nearly 90 percent of the reservoir was emptied, and the flood destroyed entire towns, left hundreds of thousands of people without drinking water, and killed tens of thousands of tons of fish.

When the reservoir emptied, sediments containing 83,000 tons of heavy metals, including lead, cadmium, and nickel, accumulated over decades rose to the surface. At the time, scientists compared the consequences of the dam’s collapse to the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster.

But in the end, the Kakhovka dam did not contain Chornobyl-level sediment. The Kyiv Reservoir, however, does.

“People make use of the river to irrigate agricultural fields, for drinking water, and to recharge aquifers. The potential for increased radioactivity in agricultural products — the wheat and other crops — is a concern,” Mousseau said.

Some of the radioactive particles will settle again, but in new places, far from the exclusion zone. Some will enter the soil, and from there, into plants, into animals, into food. Ultimately, they will end up in humans, causing a slow accumulation of radiation exposure. For years, this may not be noticeable.

When cesium enters the body, it is distributed throughout all soft tissues, particularly in the muscles. Strontium accumulates in the bones and teeth, where it remains for years. Both emit radiation from within constantly, at low levels.

Over time, it increases the risk of cancer — primarily thyroid cancer, leukemia, and bone marrow cancer — the same conditions that emerged following the Chornobyl nuclear disaster. Children face a higher risk than adults because their cells divide more rapidly. For pregnant women, there is a risk to the fetus.

At the moment, no one is claiming that a disaster is inevitable, but there is a critical lack of data and research.

“We have insufficient information. It has not been sufficiently studied,” Mousseau said.

“Unfortunately, we got used to risks. But you can never know too much and relax.”

Yana tries not to think about the potential dangers. She says that if there were a real danger here, people would have been warned.

Until then, she’ll keep going to the Kyiv Reservoir for her vacations, since there are no safer alternatives for her.

In fact, Yana will probably go there again this summer to relax.

The water will look just as calm as it always does.

NEWS OF THE DAY:

By Oleksandra Poda

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

UKRAINE AND RUSSIA EXCHANGED 193 WAR PRISONERS: On Friday, Ukraine and Russia carried out an exchange of prisoners of war. There were 193 soldiers from each side, some of whom were wounded. Zelenskyy stated that most had been illegally detained in Chechnya. The exchange also included the return of 1,200 unidentified bodies to Ukraine. The United States and the UAE acted as mediators.

Prisoner exchanges remain the only specific result of the negotiation process between Ukraine and Russia. This is the second exchange in April, following the ‘175-for-175’ exchange on April 11.

PRINCE HARRY TESTS AI DRONES FOR MINE CLEARANCE: The UK’s Prince Harry made a surprise visit to Kyiv and met with mine clearance teams near Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, on Friday. Wearing a VR headset, he operated an AI drone to detect mines and tested robots designed to defuse them. At the Kyiv Security Forum, he urged Putin to stop, and said Washington must intensify its efforts to achieve peace.

23% of Ukraine’s territory is contaminated with mines. It is the most heavily mined country in Europe.

ZELENSKYY VISITS AZERBAIJAN FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2022: On April 25, Zelensky arrived in Azerbaijan on his first visit to Baku since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Azerbaijan is a key energy partner for the EU as an alternative to Russian gas, but has a complicated relationship with Russia following the downing of the AZAL plane in 2024.

CAT OF CONFLICT:

Oleksandra’s daughter played chess with the cat. It looks like the cat won the game.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Oleksandra

Editor’s Note:

We’re marking three years of The Counteroffensive.

For three years now, The Counteroffensive has been bringing you human stories. Our main mission is to keep you informed about places where authoritarianism threatens democracies.

But we do more than that. We also strive to support, train, and develop Ukrainian journalists — to show how international newsrooms operate and what standards they set. That’s why we regularly work with interns and help them grow professionally.

This week, Myroslava and Zoriana gave a lecture to students at a university in Kyiv on visual storytelling at The Counteroffensive — about how we tell stories through words and images.

If our work resonates with you, especially our commitment to developing new journalists, please support us with a subscription.

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KYIV, Ukraine — Before you get a notification about a new story from The Counteroffensive, it has already taken us days – sometimes weeks or even months.

Finding the right character, breaking through a wall of interview refusals, staying awake at four in the morning — these are challenges our small newsroom faces almost daily. And honestly, they’re the kind of challenges we welcome.

Each story begins with dozens of unapproved ideas, reporters’ heavy sighs, meeting editors’ skeptical tongue-clicks.

Every piece is argued for until it is proven to deserve your attention.

Today, we finally shed light on our mishaps in the trips and anecdotes that never made it past drafts into the final versions.

Read more

KYIV, Ukraine — Yu* keeps a big secret. He has been carefully hiding it for three years, even from his friends, whom he left thousands of miles away without any explanation.

“If they knew, they might call the police…I will probably go to prison,” said Yu.

Once a South Korean former Marine Corps sergeant and a Korean Army reservist, he crossed the Ukrainian border in 2023 to fight against Russia.

Yu knew it might be a one-way ticket, that he might never return home if the authorities found out he had joined the Ukrainian army. He could easily face real prison time. In his country, simply visiting Ukraine could be considered a crime.

Yu’s fears are well-grounded. Earlier this month, Australian police charged a citizen for serving in the Ukrainian military without governmental authorization. This drone operator who fought against Russian forces and returned home to Australia in January 2026 can now face up to 20 years in prison for violating domestic laws.

This case briefly lifted a curtain on something that has quietly grown to an enormous scale.

As of early 2026, more than 20,000 foreign volunteers from dozens of countries are serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces — roughly two percent of Ukraine’s total military strength. They sign contracts, receive legal residency support, and serve alongside Ukrainian soldiers, although they might be breaking laws in their own countries for fighting abroad.

The Australian case exposed a reality that governments tried to ignore: thousands of volunteers made life-changing choices to defend democratic values, only to find that their home countries offered no legal path back home but the threat of prison.

Yu grew up in a country that has lived under the shadow of potential escalation from its neighbor, North Korea. Like all South Korean men under the age of 35, he was required to complete mandatory military service, as the war with North Korea never officially ended. He spent 21 months in the Republic of Korea Marine Corps, serving as an artillery squad leader on Baekryeong Island — a frontline outpost just 20 kilometers from the North Korean border.

But now he must hide his service in Ukraine to avoid being criminalized by the nation that trained him to fight in the first place.

His choice to fight on behalf of Ukraine was personal. “I did not like the fact that Russia supports North Korea and China…If Russia were to occupy Ukraine…North Korea, possibly together with China, could threaten or invade South Korea,” Yu said “That is why I see defending Ukraine as ultimately helping to defend Korea as well.”

He is not alone in this logic. In conversations with other Korean volunteers, in messages passed carefully between people who do not ask each other’s names, there’s a common thread: the war in Ukraine is not a European war. They have a consensus that this war is the first move in a sequence of wars that could end on the Korean Peninsula.

Before leaving to fight for Ukraine, Yu decided to tell his parents his secret. Of course, they were worried. It’s one thing if their son was simply doing his mandatory military service; it’s another to send their child to the other side of the world to fight in an active war. But they did not try to stop him.

“I said: ‘Don’t worry. Artillery is safer than infantry. I can make my own choices.’”

Yu had already visited Ukraine as a traveler before the war. He already knew the country well enough: where to buy a SIM card, where to eat, and how to pass border control.

When he arrived at the border in 2023, he told the Ukrainian authorities directly: he wanted to join the International Legion. Yu was sent to a military base for a three-week training. As he already had some military experience, it was shorter than a standard one, which could last up to three months.

“In Korea, there are so many artillery systems and very good missiles. We can supply our shells. But that’s all. We don’t actually have war experience [like the Ukrainian army],” said Yu.

Yu was assigned as an anti-tank soldier and served the next six months with the Second International Battalion.

“Legally, foreigners here have the same rights as Ukrainians: they sign the same contract. The only difference is that they can terminate it at will after six months of service. It takes one month from filing the report to being discharged,” explained Oleksandr Klymchuk, a lawyer specializing in legal support for military personnel—and a war veteran himself.

In the very first days of the full-scale war, Zelenskyy called on foreigners to come and serve in Ukraine to repel Russian aggression. Volunteer service in foreign conflicts is fairly common — it was practiced, for example, during the wars in Afghanistan and Syria. By 2026, volunteers from 75 countries had arrived in Ukraine and joined the Armed Forces.

These foreign fighters’ choices often stem from a desire to defend democratic values, support Ukraine against aggression, and a belief that a threat to European security is a global threat, like Yu does.

Until late 2025, the international legions remained in separate formations within Ukraine’s military. But eventually, Ukraine integrated foreign fighters into regular assault formations to “have access to heavy equipment, resources, and the logistics of regular formations,” according to the Ministry of Defense.

Yu exercised the right to withdraw from the military after six months. But his reasons for leaving were not about the war, he said. They were about wanting to be more useful in it. Assigned to an anti-tank unit, he was prevented from returning to his specialty due to the language barrier.

“If I knew Ukrainian better, I could become an artilleryman,” Yu said.

So he enrolled in a preparatory course at a Ukrainian university, studying the language, literature, and history. The plan was to come back — better equipped, in the right role.

For Yu, the contract that made him a legal soldier in Ukraine makes him a fugitive at home. South Korea’s Passport Act designates Ukraine as a forbidden travel zone. Entering without government authorization, regardless of purpose, may be a criminal offense, punishable by up to 1 year in prison or a fine of up to 10 million won (or $7,500). Several South Koreans have already been convicted under this law for traveling to Ukraine.

Although South Korea’s government largely supports Ukraine in its war against Russia, it still fears damaging economic ties with Moscow and the threat of escalation with North Korea, with which Russia is exchanging military and nuclear technologies.

South Korea is not the only country where fighting in foreign wars is forbidden. Montenegro legislation criminalizes participation in foreign conflicts, with prison sentences for citizens who join armed forces abroad. In Albania, the law prohibits citizens from joining foreign wars, and violations can lead to significant prison sentences. Across dozens of countries, the same contradiction holds: a person can be a legal combatant in Ukraine and a criminal at home simultaneously.

But several nations have already carved out their own legal ‘corridors’ to allow their citizens to fight alongside Ukraine. For instance, in February 2022, Latvia passed urgent amendments to its National Security Law, officially granting its citizens the right to serve in the Ukrainian International Legion. Denmark and the United Kingdom have taken a path of declarative support, where high-level political statements provide de facto guarantees against criminal prosecution for returning veterans.

A unique model is demonstrated by Czechia: despite a formal legal ban on serving in foreign militaries, the president utilizes a mechanism of individual pardons or collective abolition, effectively shielding volunteers from liability.

For those who cannot return safely back to their homeland and risk prison, Ukraine has created some legal pathways of its own. In 2024, parliament passed a law simplifying citizenship for foreign volunteers, reducing the required service period from three to one year. However, this system is far from perfect, as foreigners seeking citizenship often face bureaucratic hurdles that significantly delay the process.

Yu’s friends in Seoul still do not know where he has been. They know he works in Ukraine, in business. When the topic of the war comes up, some of them repeat things he disagrees with — that the eastern territories were always Russian, that this is a European problem, that Korea has no stake in it. Yu does not argue with his friends. He listens and says nothing.

“If they really understood — if we were Ukrainian, and North Korea was invading, what would we do? We would fight. We would fight for our territory, for our families. Maybe after ten years I can tell them my story. But now I’m not ready.”

He feels at home in Ukraine. If he could return to serve as an artilleryman — his original specialty — he would want to. But first, he says, he needs to know the language to fully share his artillery experience, to communicate with his unit, to be as useful as he was trained to be.

Yu wants to stay in Ukraine if possible, at least while his future in South Korea remains uncertain.

“Even when the war ends, I do not know whether I will be able to return.”

*We are not disclosing the full name of our character, as he is at risk of facing legal charges for his Ukrainian service in South Korea.

NEWS OF THE DAY:

By Oleksandra Khelemendyk, Oleksandra Poda

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

DRUZHBA OIL PIPELINE TO BE RELAUNCHED: Ukraine is planning to resume oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline on Tuesday, anonymous sources told Bloomberg.

Druzhba was damaged in a Russian attack in January. It supplied oil to Slovakia and Hungary, which conditioned a €90 billion ($106 billion) loan for Kyiv on the pipeline being fixed.

Ukraine only has enough funds to defend itself until June, so the funding blocked by Hungary’s ousted Prime Minister Viktor Orban since December is crucial for it to continue fighting.

EU ambassadors will discuss the loan again on Wednesday.

Hungary and Slovakia are temporarily exempt from the EU-imposed restrictions on direct purchases of Russian oil since 2022, but the European Commission plans to phase this practice out by the end of 2027 at the latest.

HUNGARY’S NEW PRIME MINISTER READY TO DISCUSS STOLEN FUNDS: Péter Magyar, leader of the Tisza Party, who won Hungary’s parliamentary elections, is willing to discuss the confiscated assets of Oschadbank with Ukraine after taking office as prime minister.

On March 5, two vehicles carrying $40 million, €35 million, nine kilograms of gold, and seven members of the Oschadbank cash-in-transit team were detained in Budapest. Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Hungary’s current Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of having stolen a shipment.

RUSSIA MOVES TO EXPLOIT OCCUPIED UKRAINE’S MINERALS: A Russian company affiliated with the state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec has been granted a license to develop one of the world’s five largest manganese deposits in the occupied territory of the Zaporizhzhia region.

The deposit contains approximately 1.7 billion tons of reserves with a manganese content of over 25% — enough to sustain production for up to 100 years. Developing the site is estimated to require up to 100 billion rubles (approximately $1.1 billion).

Manganese is a crucial component in steel production and plays an important role in the manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles. Peace talks are stalled as Russia extracts Ukraine’s natural resources.

NEW DETAILS ON THE TERRORIST ATTACK IN KYIV: The gunman who opened fire in Kyiv posted anti-Ukrainian and anti-Semitic messages, denied Ukraine’s right to exist, and expressed a desire for Russia to have occupied Bakhmut sooner.

Footage of the shooting showed two officers fleeing the scene after initial gunfire. As a result, Yevhen Zhukov, the head of Ukraine’s patrol police, resigned, and the officers seen in the video were placed under investigation by the State Bureau of Investigations.

The gunman served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces from 1992 to 2005, and moved between Russia and Ukraine, ultimately settling down in Kyiv. The weapon was legally registered, and the permit was renewed in December 2025 with a valid medical certificate.

According to Minister Klymenko, the shooting will not trigger mass checks of gun owners.

DOG OF WAR:

Zhuzha often attends trainings and conferences with her owner, a Ukrainian human rights defender. It’s windy outside, so she is wearing her stylish warm sweater.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Kateryna, Anastasiia, Mariana

KYIV, Ukraine — Becoming a pediatrician, wearing beautiful business attire, traveling the world, or learning languages. In childhood, dreams seem simple — they grow alongside us, change, or stubbornly push through the years and circumstances.

For the third anniversary of The Counteroffensive, we gathered personal stories from our team — about who we imagined ourselves to be as children, how this journey has changed us, and which of those dreams survived when reality proved far more complicated.

Share your own photos that fit this description! Go to https://imgbb.com/, upload your photo, and paste the URL in our comments section below.

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On the afternoon of April 18, 2026, a man opened fire on people on the street in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district.

According to President Zelenskyy, at least 5 people were killed and 15 others were wounded.

Among the wounded is a child, as well as a supermarket security guard — the attacker subsequently barricaded himself inside the store.

Read more

The Trump administration on Friday night renewed a waiver that allows countries to keep buying certain Russian oil and petroleum products.

The waiver had lapsed for six days before the Trump administration renewed it, announcing their decision at around 9 p.m. eastern when most reporters – and indeed, most Americans – had signed off for the weekend.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had previously said that Washington would not extend it but…

After paywall:

• Why did Washington reverse course just days after saying it wouldn’t extend the waiver?

• Could this move weaken Western pressure on Russia’s war economy?

• What is Russia saying about the U.S. waiver?

Read more

KYIV, Ukraine — If your teenage kid is in danger, you might see signs. New, suspiciously fancy items they shouldn’t be able to afford, their phone buzzing with notifications even at night, and getting secretive about their online whereabouts, to name a few.

Then again, those changes can look like any other phase of growing up… until they aren’t. A college student from the town of Shostka in the frontline Sumy region is currently serving 8 years in jail for national treason. According to the court, he had been ‘leaking’ coordinates of strategic objects to the Russian army for two years and putting his family in danger – only to have his life ruined in return.

Beyond its efforts to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield, Russia is trying to shake the country from the inside through propaganda, information campaigns, and empty promises on the internet. Often, Russian agents reach out to children online and offer them tempting rewards for easy tasks. Teenagers who take on the challenge gradually spiral from painting provocative graffiti to spying on Ukrainian troops or even carrying out terrorist attacks.

Early in the morning on March 23, multiple loud explosions near a block of flats in Bucha, a town about 16 miles west of Kyiv, injured two police officers. A few hours later, a 21-year-old suspect was arrested. The 21-year-old suspect was reportedly working for Russia, which contacted him through the video game World of Tanks. He is now in custody and could get up to 12 years in prison for a terrorist attack.

In July 2024, Russian agents lured two South African citizens into the war against Ukraine via the gaming platform Discord.

In the age of the internet, nations whose governments control the press and the flow of information — like Russia, China and Iran — are increasingly leveraging online tools to push their agendas. As governments around the globe get bolder and more creative in their online manipulations, internet users must be extremely wary to avoid being dragged into crime.

Vasyl Filonenko, an information security trainer at the NGO Dignity Online, dedicates his life to protecting Ukrainian children from digital threats. He travels across Ukraine to tell kids about the various threats lurking online and creates guidelines on how to discuss safe web surfing for their parents and teachers.

Vasyl has taught history at a high school in Kyiv for seven years, and he knows for sure that digital competencies are crucial to succeed in present-day Ukraine. Working with children, he quickly realized that he knew nothing about the online world and that simply reading books or attending webinars was not enough. He then joined Dignity Online to help his elderly colleagues get acclimated to technology and educate their students about the risks they can face in the digital realm.

Now, three and a half years later, he has developed about 20 ready-made lessons on online safety and mental health for different grades.

Vasyl himself is not immune to the danger. One time, he received a suspicious offer “to mark some objects on Yandex maps” for money and blocked the suspicious account without any communication. He, too, has faced cyberbullying in online games.

“Even if you don’t have your own children, we still live in the same society, in a civil society. And I would like our society to be educated so that it could react adequately to any challenges, any threats in this volatile world,” he said.

One in five Ukrainians recruited by Russia to commit crimes is below 18, according to the Security Service of Ukraine. In 2025, children carried out 130 crimes against the national security of Ukraine, which is four times more than the previous year.

Vasyl believes that the real numbers might be even higher, as statistics have not been gathered from the very beginning of the war. When asked who is most vulnerable to Russian influence on the internet, he replied that no one is safe.

“Russians mostly target teens aged from 13 to 18 years, and nine out of ten are boys. Still, when it comes to any threats in the digital realm, we should remember that anyone, regardless of age and gender, can become a victim. Even you personally,” he cautioned.

First, strangers tempt teenagers by promising easy money or tickling their nerves with a cool task, be it spray-painting the wall or closely watching a car that belongs to military personnel. If the kid takes the bait and completes the assignment, the following ones grow more complex and dangerous. But the worst things begin once he or she tries to get off the hook.

“Certain means of manipulation turn on, and it is very difficult to get rid of them,” Vasyl explained. “Let’s say, with the help of artificial intelligence, they would receive some child’s material and blackmail the child with it. They can even threaten to kill his or her parents.”

Terrified by such threats or a punishment from adults for falling for the trap in the first place, the teen might be reluctant to tell anyone that they became a victim of Russian agents. Now, they are caught deeper in malicious schemes, like a fly in a spider’s web, and it never ends well. While their peers go to prom, make friends, fall in love and pursue their dream careers, most adolescent criminals end up behind bars. Others might even get killed in the explosions they set up for Russian agents.

Sometimes, the conversation takes a completely different direction when a Russian pretends to work for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and asks for help to ‘defeat the enemy.’ In this case, parents need to explain one simple thing: no one would ask a child for help with an adult’s job, so it is better to take screenshots and report these suspicious accounts to the real SBU immediately.

Vasyl used to think that children from poorer families were more likely to fall for the rewards Russians offer for committing a crime, but the reality turned out to be even harsher. Even if the parents can afford most things their child needs, he or she might still jump at the chance to earn some money independently, no matter the means.

Still, the biggest threat we face online could lie within ourselves. One trait that all victims have in common is their unjustified self-confidence. Even aware of what the enemy could do to them online, most internet users tend to believe they are immune to falling victim — a common fallacy.

“We shouldn’t underestimate Russians. They are extremely smart, cunning, cold-blooded, and cruel. And they treat people who cooperate with them as consumable material,” he said.

Russian agents can get in touch with Ukrainian kids almost anywhere. One of the most common ways is on Telegram, a very popular messaging app in Ukraine. Despite its ties to Russia’s Federal Security Service, Telegram remains extremely popular in Ukraine. The latest large-scale research on Ukrainian youth conducted in July 2024 shows that more than 80 percent of teenagers used the messaging platform every day. About 92 percent of the entire Ukrainian population open the app at least weekly.

Although not yet as common as other tactics, Vasyl said that gaming groups and services are dangerous platforms on the rise.

“Potential communication can take place on [multiplayer game platforms and forums, such as] Steam, Discord, Riot Games, Roblox, and in any online game, such as Minecraft and the like,” he said. “This is how the ‘illusion of the bedroom’ works – when you are relaxed and physically safe, you think you’ll be fine online.”

Thanks to preventive measures, more and more teenagers have learned to be skeptical. In 2025, about 120 potential victims reported attempts to recruit them for dangerous tasks. Some of them even received awards for their quick actions. In July 2025, two boys from Kryvyi Rih in the Dnipro region helped identify Russian agents and were given gifts by the National Police and Security Service of Ukraine.

In Vasyl’s opinion, Ukraine is facing such a challenge for the first time in history. Responding to the online threat without relying on any prior experience is a task for everyone: parents, law enforcement, the education system, and ordinary users.

He is convinced that the best way to protect Ukrainian kids against Russian tactics online is to build mutual trust with the children through communication. Instead of total control or intimidating serious conversations about safety, parents should try to understand the context and express a keen interest in what their child is doing online. If Vasyl had a child, they would talk about the digital world a lot and play online games together.

“Communication has to be systematic,” Vasyl explained. “Kids need to know you will not scold them if they come to you with a problem or ask for advice. Also, you need to do a huge pile of work and figure out what skins are there in Brawl Stars and what a standoff is,” he said, referencing online gaming terminology. “If they start to pull a joke from Roblox,” which is a gaming platform where users can create and play games together, “it is very difficult to communicate without understanding what Roblox is.”

In his own training sessions, Vasyl tries to establish similar trust and comfort with the young listeners, and his efforts seem to pay off. He vividly remembers a lesson he once conducted at primary school: After the bell rang, kids ran up to him, the teacher, hugging him and asking him to come back to school once more. Surrounded by excited, grateful students, Vasyl felt that his work truly had meaning to it.

Even if he couldn’t give them a specific plan for every situation, he surely instilled in them an interest in learning, and this spark is key to keeping up with our rapidly evolving battlefields.

NEWS OF THE DAY:

By Serafima Melnychuk

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

U.S.–UKRAINE INVESTMENT TO APPROVE SECOND PROJECT: The U.S.–Ukraine reconstruction fund is expected to approve its second investment this summer, with a further project planned by the end of 2026, Yegor Perelygin, Ukraine's deputy economy minister, told Reuters.

The reconstruction fund was established according to the minerals deal with the US in the areas like critical minerals among others.

The first investment of the fund was made into the company Sine Engineering.

UKRAINE’S DEFENSE MINISTRY LAUNCHES DRONE ASSAULT UNITS: Ukraine has established a unit called drone assault formations, which comprises aerial and ground drones, and foot soldiers forming an all-encompassing fighting force. This unit, according to the Defense Ministry, heralds a new form of warfare aimed at improving efficiency, cutting costs, and reducing fatalities.

UKRAINE SECURED NEW RAMSTEIN AID PLEDGES: Ukraine will get new military assistance from allies following the Ramstein talks, including drones, air defense, and logistic support, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced.

Five nations agreed to contribute to the list of prioritized needs that NATO compiled for Ukraine, according to Zelenskyy. Norway pledged more than $500 million for drones and $150 million for logistical assistance, whereas the Netherlands pledged over €200 million for drones.

ZELENSKYY AND ITALY’S PM AGREE TO IMPROVE THEIR DEFENSE TIES: After talks in Rome, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni decided to collaborate more in the defense sector, including drone production.

The two heads of state emphasized that their delegations would work out the specifics of the partnership, but no details were disclosed. In the statement of the Italian PM, Meloni emphasized that the discussions centered on strengthening their defense relationship.

SANCTIONS HAVE BEEN PUT BACK IN PLACE AGAINST RUSSIAN OIL: The Treasury Department has officially said that they will not extend temporary waivers that would allow Russian oil exports.

Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, said during a White House press briefing that this move was never meant to be a big favor to Russia. Instead, it was meant to stabilize oil prices on the world market by sending oil from China to America’s allies.

FRANCE TO JOIN AGREEMENT IN TRIBUNAL AGAINST RUSSIA: The Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Andrii Sybiha, has stated that France has officially become part of the initiative to create a Special Tribunal to investigate Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The number of countries involved now stands at 18.

According to him, there will be an important decision in May when the Council of Europe meets in Chișinău, and he called upon additional countries to join the effort, which seeks to hold Russia’s leadership accountable for initiating the war against Ukraine.

UK PAID FINAL INSTALLMENT OF $1.02 BLN FOR LOAN TO UKRAINE: Ukraine received £752 million out of £2.26 billion loan ($1.02 billion out of $3.07 billion) from the UK under the G7’s Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) scheme.

The scheme was signed in March 2025 and is structured as a 30-year loan with an intention to enhance Ukraine’s defense capacities through the use of funds raised by freezing Russian government assets overseas. Thus far, in March and April, £1.5 billion was already transferred, and the above loan completes the sum of £2.26 billion pledged by the UK.

PENGUIN OF WAR:

Nastia saw these penguins in the zoo during her one-day trip to Kharkiv. Although there was an air raid alert, one of many that day, the visitors were allowed to stay, and Nastia and her friend found these cuties.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Oleksandra

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Walking through a night market in Taiwan is a wonderfully overwhelming experience. The packed crowd, surrounded by various food options, is full of people having a hard time deciding what to eat.

There’s baked pepper buns, stinky tofu, fried yam balls, and oyster pancakes.

And of course, after tasting it all, no one walks home without a bubble tea.

The place where ordinary Taiwanese people go for a bite has become an iconic signature for the country, attracting tourists from all over the world.

But it could all disappear if the Iran war lasts much longer.

Taiwan is one of many countries that have suffered from the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz since the U.S. and Israel first struck Iran on February 28.

The plastic that defines Taiwan’s night markets, from food packaging to utensils and even in the lids of the bubble tea cups, is made using crude oil from the Middle East.

Although the two-week ceasefire agreement announced on April 7 brought hope that the Strait of Hormuz might allow ships to pass through, Trump’s new naval blockade means renewed challenges to sailing oil and fertilizer through the waterway.

Taiwan imports 65% of its crude oil from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq, according to a report from the Executive Yuan, the highest administration office in the Taiwan central government. Taiwan, its food scene, and its culture are left exposed to a war thousands of miles away.

A-Chan wakes up at 6 o’clock every morning to prepare food for the day: noodles (mee sua in Taiwanese), chicken fillet, and his signature dish, stinky tofu. His shop, A-Chan Mee Sua, is in the most popular market area that runs from day to night, near Taipei Main Station. He has been running the business for more than 30 years since he took over from his parents.

He sells an array of food that can be found in the night market, most of which gets wrapped in plastic before purchase.

The last thing A-Chan wants is to fail the business that belongs to his family heritage. He keeps the shop open every day except on official holidays such as the Lunar New Year, and makes sure that every customer enjoys every bite.

Now, the shortage of plastic bags is making A-Chan anxious. “Damn Trump! Stop the war!” he said.

To counter the plastic shortage, some vendors are recommending that customers bring their own plastic bags. Some charge the customers extra fees for bags. As the war in Iran drags on, the plastic shortage crisis has only continued to worsen.

Taiwanese media started showing plastic distributors complaining about the limited production, panicking the consumers. The plastic bags became rare and harder to find in the market, suggesting that either the distributors or the consumers are stockpiling, causing prices to skyrocket and forcing the Taiwanese government to announce a supply-distribution stability plan.

For heated food vendors, the issue is even worse — some plastic bags are made specially to endure the hot temperatures. “The price of those almost doubled,” A-Chan said.

But to A-Chan, the high cost of the bags isn’t the real problem. “It’s still affordable, but the issue is we can’t buy them, even if we pay more,” he said.

The Counteroffensive tried to find out if any distributors were stockpiling, and after visiting at least four distributors, only one was willing to comment.

“Please stop reporting on the shortage. People kept coming to panic buy.” The owner of the Hua-Yuan Trading House said.

A panic buy — which refers to sudden and excessive purchase of daily groceries, such as food, and fuel — has happened multiple times in Taiwan, especially when a typhoon or earthquake hits badly.

A-Chan’s mother, Mrs. Tseng, trusts her supplier. “They don’t stockpile. They need to maintain a good relationship with clients. If they hid bags from us, they would lose business soon.”

When asked what they plan to do with their business if the war lasts long term, Mrs. Tseng said with faith, “the war won’t end immediately, but it won’t last longer than six months. It will cost [the Americans] too much!”

The night market vendors and their supply chains are mostly small businesses. The floating cost of plastic could easily take over their profit, and that’s not the only concern.

Liquefied Petroleum Gas, or LPG, is one of the most important tools for the hot food vendors. 33.7% of Taiwan’s LPG is imported from Qatar, according to the data from the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs, which makes Qatar its biggest supplier.

In order to control inflation, the Taiwanese government held up the price of LPG for household use toward the end of March. But the night market vendors aren’t as lucky.

Moreover, the rise in the price of vegetable oil could cause more damage to the food vendors. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says that vegetable oil ​prices have increased 5.1% since last September.

All these factors can make it harder for night market vendors to make ends meet. Chris, the vendor who sells fried yam balls in a southern city of Taiwan, Tainan, is feeling the pain.

“I just started my business at the end of last year.” He can’t believe his luck: “In four months, I saw the Black Swan,” referring to the extremely rare wartime events unfolding that are impacting his business.

Most of these vendors are paying the rising cost out of pocket. It can take out hundreds of dollars from their profit per month.

To keep the night market lively during hard times, the Taiwanese government is trying to hold down oil prices for as long as it can. CPC Corporation, Taiwan, owned by the government, has paid 103.7 million dollars (3.3 billion NTD) for the extra cost of gas in the past two weeks, without sharing the burden with users.

Everyone tries to do their best to survive until the Strait of Hormuz opens. The plastic bag issue is probably easier to solve first. The Taipei city council started to promote using reusable bags or having the customers bring their own containers.

Before the plastic shortage crisis, some Taiwanese people were considering how to make bubble tea less carbon-intensive. They bring their own cups, reusable straws, and replace the plastic carrier bag with a cloth bag.

Some conservation groups even see this moment as an opportunity to change the night market into a more eco-friendly and sustainable place.

The lack of diverse energy sources during the Iran war has brought back the discussion about using nuclear energy after the referendum to restart the nuclear power plant in Taiwan failed last August.

Just two weeks ago, President William Lai made a speech revealing his nuclear energy strategy. “We don’t know how long the war will last, but Taiwan needs to be prepared for the worst.”

The Iran war has affected Taiwan slowly, but surely. This squeeze means that a cultural staple — the nightmarket — is dying slowly, too.

NEWS OF THE DAY:

By Oleksandra Khelemendyk and Anastasiia Lutsenko

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

UKRAINE TO PRODUCE DRONES IN NORWAY: Norway and Ukraine agreed to strengthen defense cooperation and produce Ukrainian drones in Norway, according to Reuters. Norway will support drone production in Ukraine, while Ukraine will share its experience, data, and knowledge. Some drones will also be made on Norwegian territory.

Norway strongly supports Ukraine and is on track to provide about $28 billion in aid from 2023 to 2030. On Tuesday, Ukraine’s president also agreed on a major drone production deal with Germany during a meeting in Berlin.

ISRAEL RECEIVED STOLEN UKRAINIAN GRAIN: A Russian bulker, ABINSK, carried more than 43 thousand tons of grain from the occupied territories of Ukraine and was docked in the Israeli port of Haifa on April 12, reported Hromadske. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha condemned the act in a call with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa’ar, calling it “illegal.” According to the Foreign Intelligence Service, Russia exported more than 2 million tons of stolen Ukrainian grain in 2025.

PRO-RUSSIAN HACKERS BREACH UKRAINIAN PROSECUTORS’ EMAILS: In the past several months, Russia-backed hackers broke into more than 284 emails of European officials in Ukraine, Serbia, Romania and Greece, Reuters reports.

170 accounts belong to Ukrainian investigators and prosecutors who deal with corruption and collaborators. The list of victims includes employees of Ukraine’s Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA), which oversees assets seized from criminals and Russian collaborators, the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office in the Field of Defense, and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).

According to Keir Giles, an analyst from London’s Chatham House think tank, Ukrainian law enforcement was targeted to prevent Moscow’s spies from being exposed and to gather potentially embarrassing information about top officials.

DOG OF PEACE:

Today’s Dog of Peace is Mei-Nung. She was abused by men before she was rescued. She’s still a little scared of men. But she’s very friendly to ladies!

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Elaine

Editor’s Note: Our reporting takes you behind the scenes in the place where democracy is under threat. We have two reporters in Hungary tonight covering the results – support us so we can keep going!

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BUDAPEST, Hungary — With 60 percent of the vote counted, Viktor Orbán has congratulated opposition candidate Peter Magyar on winning the election.

In his concession speech in Budapest, Orbán said the “election results, although not complete, are understandable and clear. They are painful for us but unequivocal.”

Today’s elections hit a record turnout, with 77.8 percent of voters showing up – substantially higher than in previous elections.

The result is a setback for the Trump family and Trump administration, which had lobbied hard to support Orbán.

After the paywall:
- Our reporting from on the ground in Budapest
- What is special about Magyar?
- What does TISZA’s victory mean for Ukraine?
- Exclusive photos and videos from the election counting gathering in Budapest.

Read more