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Viktoriia Ponomareva

Viktoriia Ponomareva

Reporter, The Insider

POLITICS

“Join the elite drone forces, and you’ll come home famous!”: Russian universities are luring students into paid military service

Confession

“Programs about Christ followed by beatings half to death”: Kherson’s ex-mayor Volodymyr Mykolaienko on his years in Russian captivity

SOCIETY

Heated bricks, shared generators, and candles: How Kyiv survives without power and heat

Confession

“You must not show that you are afraid”: Tales of captivity in the Kremlin-controlled “People’s Republics”

Confession

Tracked down, coerced, threatened: How Russia hunts down deserters and forces them back to the front lines in Ukraine

SOCIETY

“Drones fly right above the stores”: Residents flee the border areas of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk Region amid Russian advance

SOCIETY

“Russia arrested me in absentia, but an American court said I faced no danger back home”: How Russians are being deported from the U.S.

SOCIETY

“We’re back to good old text messages”: Russians adjust to widespread mobile internet shutdowns

SOCIETY

“More and more people don’t want to speak Russian”: How Ukrainians’ attitudes toward the Russian language changed during the war

POLITICS

“I ran out of the dugout just in time to see the convict chasing a soldier with an axe”: Russian servicemen on the army’s degradation

SOCIETY

“The teacher said we invaded to cleanse them of Nazis”: Inside Russia’s classroom campaign against Ukraine

POLITICS

Changing channels: How three years of Kremlin propaganda bans in the EU have affected Russian-speaking audiences

Confession

“Photos of Putin and Kadyrov were in the dean’s office, like icons”: Russian students expelled for their anti-war views share their stories

SOCIETY

“The unwilling were tasered or had their papers signed for them”: Russia’s fall conscription drive reaches new levels of brutality

POLITICS

“We broke into homes, looted supermarkets, acting like savages”: Confessions of a Russian Marine who fought in the Kursk Region

Confession

“For 72 days I was electrocuted, beaten, not allowed to eat or sleep”: how Russian convicts are driven to “meat-grinder assaults”

SOCIETY

“How do they make us sign contracts? They stick needles under our fingernails”: Wounded Russian soldiers forced back into the fight

Confession

“Shreds of bodies hung from the branches”: Confessions of “meat grinder” assault veterans

Confession

“Dying isn’t as bad as being a Russian POW”: Freed Ukrainian soldiers speak out about their time in Russian captivity

SOCIETY

Children of the Underground: How Kharkiv’s schoolchildren study in the subway amidst constant Russian shelling

SOCIETY

“A wave of repression is sweeping over us; people are terrified”: Voices of Crimea after 10 years of occupation

POLITICS

“Drafted on the same day, slashed his wrists upon arrival at his army unit”: Coercive tactics in Russian military conscription

SOCIETY

“Destroying culture, you destroy identity”: Russia razing Ukraine’s cultural and architectural heritage to the ground

SOCIETY

“Even children's toys are booby-trapped.” Why demining Ukraine may take 750 years

SOCIETY

“When she hears a loud noise, she drops to the floor covering her head with her hands”. War's effect on children in Ukraine

SOCIETY

Warriors of compassion: Veterinarians and volunteers share first-hand accounts of saving animals in Ukraine

Confession

“Defending Ukraine, we're fighting for our honor tarnished by Kadyrovites”: Confessions of Chechen AFU fighters

Confession

“After what we’ve seen, all problems seem trivial.” Confessions of war correspondents working in Ukraine

POLITICS

“We dug trenches with spoons and looked for ways to hide.” How mobilized men were sent to frontline unprepared and unsupplied

POLITICS

“Ethnicity is irrelevant, it's the aggressor's identity that matters”: Confessions of Russian Volunteer Corps fighters

POLITICS

“I'd rather go to jail than add to the chaos.” How and why Russian contract servicemen evade war in Ukraine

SOCIETY

“It's not the sight of blood that scares you but the possibility of making a mistake.” Confessions of frontline medics

Confession

“They sawed my husband's teeth off, he screamed in pain, and I heard it all”: Kherson locals on life under Russian occupation

Confession

“This is my land, I am ready to kill for it”. How Ukrainian women fight on the front line

POLITICS

“If they don't let me out, I'd rather go to jail than kill.” Russians on how they escaped mobilization

SOCIETY

The virus that wouldn't go away. Why Long COVID sufferers often can't get help

Opinions

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