Eyes on Russia

Avdiivka, a small city 13 kilometres to the north of Donetsk city, has been at the forefront of Russia’s war in Ukraine since 2014. Prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, fighting for the city was emblematic of the broader war in the Donbas and centred on the city’s industrial zone to the south-east. Occasional flare-ups between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces (such as in January-February 2017) would result in the shelling of the residential areas of Avdiivka, however this was irregular.

Kherson was the first major Ukrainian city to be seized by Russian occupying forces at the beginning of the full-scale invasion with President Putin declaring the city part of the Russian Federation on 30 September 2022 after a sham referendum.

A year after the discovery of mass graves and evidence of torture in Izium, open source investigators from the Centre for Information...

Open source investigators verify over 2,600 attacks on Ukraine’s hospitals, schools, churches and energy supply since Russian invasion

Starting in the last week of October, CIR observed a growing number of videos of Russian Shahed and Geran One Way Attack (OWA) drones flying at extremely low altitudes over Ukraine, in particular over the capital city, Kyiv. CIR assesses that the recent increase in numbers of drones being launched at Ukraine may be an attempt to deplete Ukraine’s air defence stocks. Additionally, Russia’s last large-scale missile strike against Ukraine occurred in August 2024 and CIR assesses that Russia has possibly been building up their missile stocks for a renewed campaign over the winter period.

Hostile rhetoric on Russian state-controlled TV tried to lay the foundation for widespread acceptance of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.