Amira Barkhush

People have gathered, anxiously scanning the horizon for the buses carrying the released prisoners. For many, today is the day they will finally get to embrace their loved ones after years of Russian captivity.

Returning from Russian captivity is a moment thousands of Ukrainian families wait for, longing to see their loved ones again. But captivity continues to take its toll even after freedom. The body and mind return scarred, and sometimes, the heart stops beating.

Denmark has been one of Ukraine’s most devoted allies since the start of the full-scale invasion, notably setting a precedent in 2024 by committing to deliver all its artillery reserves to Ukraine.

“Either we stop Putin here, or we will have to confront him directly in the Baltics or elsewhere”—Italian Senator Carlo Calenda visits Kyiv on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“The cell is cold, rats run around, the light is on constantly.” This is how a civilian journalist abducted in Russian-occupied Melitopol describes her detention. Like many other Ukrainian media workers, Yana has been reclassified by Russia as a “terrorist” and sentenced in a closed, staged trial, effectively erased from public view and from prisoner-exchange talks.

Amid US-mediated peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, Putin continues to invoke Donbas and the “Novorossiya,” claiming to seize it even as Russian forces fail to decisively break through Ukrainian defensive lines in the Donetsk region. What does this term mean, and what does this rhetoric reveal about Moscow’s actual intentions for “peace”?