#Kharkiv

Russian leader Vladimir Putin claimed Ukrainian forces were “surrounded” in Kupiansk and invited journalists to see it—but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy showed up there himself, as Ukrainian forces carried out a successful counteroffensive in the city.

Vladimir Putin’s generals briefed him on the “capture” of two Ukrainian cities this weekend—assertions quickly contradicted by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and OSINT analysts, whose battlefield maps show the towns remain contested and far from the sweeping advances Moscow claims.

From smashing a 2,000-year-old Han dynasty urn to carpeting the vast halls of the Tate Modern with millions of ceramic sunflower seeds, the career of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been defined by large-scale statements. The very established artist, who started off as a dissident not only in China but in the art world itself, talks to us about his time in Ukraine.

A Russian missile barrage targeted western Ukraine overnight, collapsing part of a high‑rise in Ternopil, killing at least 25 and injuring dozens of other residents—including children—as simultaneous strikes battered Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Kharkiv, overwhelming emergency crews across the region.