Travel, property, and local info for Ukraine

7+ min ago (1022+ words) Russian soldiers who refuse to fight are being held for months in a basement near occupied Mariupol, where detainees describe beatings, overcrowding and conditions "worse than cattle." In Melekino, near Russian-occupied Mariupol, Russian soldiers who refuse to fight (refusniks) have reportedly been held for months in a basement. The independent Russian outlet Astra, citing sources, reports that a soldier from Buryatia " identified under the assumed name "Yegor Kharin" for safety " arrived in Melekino in June 2025 and was immediately taken to the basement of an abandoned construction site. Melekino, a resort village on the Sea of Azov about 20 kilometers from Mariupol, has been under Russian control since 2022. Astra says the unfinished building is the 24th such detention site it has identified since the Kremlin's full-scale invasion. "Darkness, gloom, no air, damp, cardboard boxes, pallets, bottles," is how Kharin described the basement. According…...

2+ hour, 9+ min ago (413+ words) US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and billionaire BlackRock CEO Larry Fink are set to represent US interests as Ukraine works on a revised peace plan. President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine-US talks held earlier in the day about Ukraine's postwar economic recovery had been productive on Wednesday. Earlier, Zelensky said that talks were scheduled with the US to discuss a document drafted by the Ukrainian side as part of their proposed revisions of a US-drafted plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine. Writing on Telegram on Wednesday evening, Zelensky said: "We had a productive conversation with the American side - Scott Bessent, Jared Kushner and Larry Fink. In fact, this was the first meeting of the group that will work on a document on the reconstruction and economic recovery of Ukraine." Scott Bessent is US President Donald…...

2+ hour, 19+ min ago (174+ words) Starting in January 2026, Ukrainians will be able to check in the Diia application whether their house is connected to a non-volatile xPON network and assess the stability of the Internet, First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov has said. "Ukrainians will be able to check through the Diia application whether their house is connected to a non-volatile xPON network. The service will be launched in January 2026," Fedorov said in the Telegram channel on Wednesday. According to him, the map will show providers that serve a specific house and provide access to the Internet using xPON technology and how many hours the Internet will work in case of power outages. In addition, users will be able to leave suggestions and feedback on the quality of the provider's work. "The map will show the real state of non-volatile Internet…...

2+ hour, 40+ min ago (64+ words) President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, December 10, signed the law on the State Budget for 2026, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in early December. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, December 10, signed the law on the State Budget for 2026, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in early December. The corresponding mark appeared on the bill card on the parliament's website....

2+ hour, 59+ min ago (177+ words) "Then we made it possible to expand this limit (EUR 1 million) by the amount invested into the charter capital of Ukrainian enterprises. This new form of incentive-based liberalization has been in effect for less than six months, and an additional $23 million in dividends has already been taken out of Ukraine," he said at the Ukraine " for Investment forum organized by the Economic Pravda ezine. Pyshnyy noted that overall, cases of foreign currency inflows from abroad into companies' charter capital have become more frequent: while in January"June this figure averaged $17 million per month, in August it reached $20 million, and in September it already amounted to $56 million. "That is, for this amount, those who invest will be able to increase the corresponding repatriation," the NBU governor explained. He once again emphasized that currency liberalization is taking place gradually and according to…...

3+ hour, 3+ min ago (320+ words) Lance Corporal George Hooley died after being involved an accident "whilst observing Ukrainian forces test a new defensive capability." Two Ukrainian military personnel were also reportedly killed. The UK defense ministry on Wednesday named the British service person killed in Ukraine on Tuesday as Lance Corporal George Hooley of the British Army's Parachute Regiment. The ministry released a statement announcing that a member of Britain's armed forces had died in Ukraine on Tuesday, but did not identify him until Wednesday. "Lance Corporal Hooley died following a tragic accident whilst observing Ukrainian forces test a new defensive capability, away from the front lines. He was 28 years old," the ministry said in a statement. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer also named Hooley in parliament on Wednesday, "to express our gratitude and respect, and to affirm that his service will never be forgotten....

3+ hour, 11+ min ago (420+ words) Ukraine's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk was summoned to the foreign ministry on Wednesday to express dissatisfaction with his remarks about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conversations with Vladimir Putin, the YNET news portal said. Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel summoned to Foreign Ministry after criticism of Netanyahu Ukraine's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk was summoned to the foreign ministry on Wednesday to express dissatisfaction with his remarks about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conversations with Vladimir Putin, the YNET news portal said. "Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk was summoned to the foreign ministry to issue a reprimand after he criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's comments about his conversations with" Vladimir Putin in an interview with YNET," the portal said on the website. According to the Foreign Ministry, Deputy Director General for Eurasian Affairs…...

3+ hour, 16+ min ago (310+ words) State Language Commissioner Olena Ivanovska believes the proposal to ban Russian-language versions of websites is symptomatic of the deep pain Ukrainians feel, but there is currently no legal means to challenge it. At the same time, she emphasized that the state should act not based on emotion, but according to the law, and that the petition's demands contradict Article 27 of the Law "On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language," which permits the existence of other language versions of a website if the Ukrainian version is the main one. "That is, the law itself does not authorize the state to ban languages "on private websites. As soon as we cross this line of priority and move toward a complete ban, we violate constitutional guarantees. Consequently, we open the door to international complaints. We also give our…...

3+ hour, 17+ min ago (254+ words) On Wednesday, SBU Sea Baby naval drones hit the Dashan oil tanker belonging to the Russian shadow fleet in the Black Sea. This was a joint operation of the 13th Main Directorate of Military Counterintelligence of the SBU with the Ukrainian Navy, a source in the SBU told Interfax-Ukraine. It is noted that Dashan was moving under the flag of the Comoros Islands in the exclusive economic zone of Ukraine in the direction of the Novorossiysk port terminal. The vessel was moving at maximum speed with the transponder turned off. According to information, the tanker suffered critical damage as a result of the attack. The video shows powerful explosions in the stern area. According to preliminary information, the vessel is out of order. According to our sources, the approximate cost of such a tanker is $30 million, and for 1 voyage it transported…...

3+ hour, 37+ min ago (229+ words) The Higher Regional Court of Vienna (Das Oberlandesgericht Wien, OLG) has confirmed as final the decision of a lower court that refused to extradite Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash to the United States after many years of court hearings that began in 2014 with a record bail of EUR 125 million. As reported by the Austrian Der Standart on Wednesday, the OLG rejected as inadmissible the appeal of the Vienna Prosecutor's Office against the decision of the Vienna Regional Court of November 4, 2024. Back in October, Austrian media reported on the high probability of this development of events, because the appeal of the state prosecutor was filed after the expiration of the usual appeal period. In April 2015, the OG rejected the U.S. Department of Justice's request for Firtash's extradition, emphasizing the impossibility of excluding political motives in the extradition request. However, in February 2017, the OLG…...