The State of Ukraine: Observations from the European Parliament during the recent European Parliament’s surprise visit to Ukraine, where Russian forces are fighting in Kiev
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise Europe tour, meeting leaders in London, Paris and Brussels, and reiterating his call for allies to send fighter jets to Ukraine.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces attacked Ukrainian defensive lines in the easternUkrainian region of Luhansk, and made marginal advances. Analysts at the Atlantic Council also said Russian forces are pushing to encircle Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
The Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. attended the State of the Union speech again but the war in the country received much less attention this year.
There’s “strong” evidence that Russian President Putin gave the go-ahead to supply anti-aircraft weaponry to the rebels in Ukraine, according to an international team of investigators.
You can read the recaps here. You can find more about NPR’s coverage here. Listen to the State of Ukraine for updates throughout the day.
The car that Orlov was traveling in when he was hit by a vehicle was engulfed in flames, but he did not see what had hit him. He suspected Russian gun fire.
Pinned in the back seat, Orlov says he was initially unable to get out of the vehicle – his feet had been crushed by the car and his legs had been wounded by the explosion. He and his team were in disbelief that they had survived, after laying in the nearby grass to watch the flames and figure out their next steps.
On the fate of Orlov’s feet: The challenges of reconstruction in the war in Ukraine and Russia, and the hope for the rest of the world
February 24 will mark a year since Russia launched its war on Ukraine – and ahead lies what is widely expected to be a brutal spring of fighting. Thousands of troops and more than 18,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations, have lost their lives, and millions have fled. Cities and infrastructure across Ukraine have been decimated by the fighting and relentless shelling.
Since he arrived in the United States in January, Orlov has already undergone “two very lengthy procedures to begin the major step for reconstruction of both his right and his left foot” with care that has involved multiple specialists, Fufa explained.
There are a lot of wounded guys. Orlov told CNN. There is no free space for the doctors, who are working hard from morning to evening. (There’s not) enough medicine because it’s war,” he said in limited English.
That video caught the attention of some US volunteers and eventually made its way to Gary Wasserson, a retired American businessman from New York who was already coordinating volunteer aid resources to the region.
Wasserson said he sponsored Orlov to come to the United States under the “Uniting for Ukraine” program, which provides a temporary pathway for Ukrainians to come to the United States for two years if they have someone who can provide them with financial assistance. Wasserson’s toughest task was “getting the attention of Homeland Security to understand the urgency of the medical issues at hand,” he said.
Fufa cautions that reconstructing Orlov’s feet does not guarantee that he’ll be able to walk again.
“The complexity comes from the fact that he had both soft tissue wounds as well as bone defects or missing bone from the blast injuries and the multiple fractures in each of the feet,” Fufa told CNN.
“I’ve warned him that this is such a long road that I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point we hit roadblocks where it feels like this is taking too long or that this is too challenging to continue to face,” Fufa said.
He hopes he can walk again, but his hopes for his country are much bigger than that – he said he wants the world to know this isn’t simply about two countries in conflict.
He stated that this is not only about the war in Ukraine and Russia but also the women and children that have lost their lives because of the fighting. “It’s about human rights.”