region Donbas: Last News

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned against striking a deal with Russia to end the Ukraine War that does not hold the instigators of the 2022 invasion and perpetrators of war crimes to account.

Lise Pedersen When Russian forces launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on this day three years ago, filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko (“Home Games,” “We Will Not Fade Away”) bid farewell to her partner and four-year-old son and joined the Ukrainian Volunteer Army. As she traded her camera for a rifle, she couldn’t leave behind her instinct to document. What emerged is “My Dear Theo,” a poignant video diary for her son, set to premiere in the main competition at the Copenhagen Intl.

A Coatbridge comedian's musical stand-up group's song about the size of seagulls in Aberdeen saved the life of a volunteer medic in war-torn Ukraine.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic, met with Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov Sunday ahead of the world premiere of Sentsov’s documentary “Real” at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Described as an “accidental” film, the 88-minute feature is entirely comprised of footage Sentsov shot in a trench in Ukraine’s Donbas region after a nearby unit was ambushed by Russian forces.

Today marks one full year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began and fears remain that it could last for another.

A camera pans slowly around a modestly comfortable living room. Here is the kitchen corner, with its microwave, coffee machine and jars of newly preserved tomatoes. Here are the inherited cabinets, one full of the best china, one full of books. And now, here is a wall that doesn’t exist any more. Torn plaster and broken wood frames a vast portal to the rolling steppes. There is a single road across those grasslands. It leads to Russia.

China still has much to gain from its current relationship with Russia even as the invasion of Ukraine drags on, turning Russia into an international pariah and threatening to rub off on China’s reputation as well.  "China has, in effect, doubled down on its support for the Putin war effort, and we saw this, for instance, last month when China's third rank leader went to Moscow, spoke to the State Duma, and in very clear terms, expressed Beijing's support for Russia," Gordon Change, author of "The Coming Collapse of China," told Fox News Digital.  "Then, [we] see Jinping himself when he was in Uzbekistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, actually confirmed that endorsement," Chang added. "The only conclusion that we can come to is that Beijing is not backing away from Russia."  The China and Russia dynamic has remained a troubling one for the United States since even before the invasion of Ukraine started in March 2022.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Hard-hitting documentaries centering on some of the world’s most critical geopolitical flashpoints have proved hot sellers for Java Films. The Paris and London-based distributor closed a number of deals this week at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous TV market in Biarritz for provocative works that examine life in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian city of Gaza, the causes of the Ukraine war, and rising tensions between the U.S. and China over the vital supply of semiconductors. Chiara Avesani and Matteo Delbò’s “Erasmus in Gaza” follows Riccardo, an Italian final-year medical student who wants to be a trauma surgeon and travels to war-torn Gaza on an Erasmus exchange program in order to receive battlefield training and write his thesis on explosive bullet wounds. The young medic is not prepared for the brutality of war, however.

Scores of civilians are feared dead or seriously injured after a Russian rocket strike hit a crowded shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, officials have said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Telegram post that the number of victims was “unimaginable”, citing reports that more than 1,000 civilians were inside at the time of the attack.

Boris Johnson has reportedly arrived in Kyiv for a surprise visit to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Two British soldiers captured whilst fighting in Ukraine have been 'sentenced to death' and are now set to face a firing squad it has been reported.

Lise Pedersen As the boundaries in cinema become increasingly fluid, emerging filmmakers whose films have been selected at the Cannes Film Festival have been discussing their journey from documentary to fiction at the Cannes Market’s Cannes Docs sidebar.Curated by the Documentary Assn. of Europe, the panel on Sunday brought together Ukrainian director Maksym Nakonechnyi, the director of Un Certain Regard title “Butterfly Vision,” and Erige Sehiri (“Railway Men”), the Tunisian director of “Under the Fig Leaves,” which had its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar.The titles are fiction debuts for Nakonechnyi and Sehiri, who are both experienced documentary filmmakers.Inspired by the conflict in Ukraine’s Eastern Donbas region that has been ongoing since 2014, “Butterfly Vision” is the story of a young Ukrainian soldier who returns home after being held captive for months and discovers she is pregnant after being raped by her Russian warden.

Dennis Harvey Film CriticCanadian filmmaker and photographer Louie Palu’s “Zero Position” offers a stark snapshot of war’s devastation in Eastern Ukraine. Shot in 2016, well before the current invasion but at a point when Russia-allied separatists had already occupied much of the Donbas region, this impressionistic documentary does not provide much in the way of contextualizing explanation, let alone political analysis.

Dozens of people have reportedly been killed in a rocket strike on an eastern Ukrainian train station used for evacuating civilians. More than 30 people have been killed and dozens injured in the Donetsk region, in the city of Kramatorsk, when two rockets hit the station, according to the head of Ukraine’s railways Olexander Kamyshin.

Lise Pedersen “Novorossiya” by Enrico Parenti and Luca Gennari, which had its world premiere this week at CPH:DOX, is a rare film that shows the ongoing conflict in Ukraine’s Eastern Donbas region from the Russian perspective.Gennari, an experienced cinematographer, was shocked at the way the war in the Luhansk and Donetsk region, where pro-Russian separatists have proclaimed the state of Novorossiya (literally “New Russia”), no longer received any media attention once the Maidan revolution was over.In 2017, he decided to head to the Donbas region with his camera to see what life was like there.The film follows the parallel stories of a handful of characters, ranging from a communist U.S. fighter from Texas to a young Ukrainian soldier, a captain in the separatist army who dreams of rebuilding the Soviet Union, an opera singer from the Donetsk opera house, two young men from a heavy metal band and two elderly women who live in a bunker.

A Thornhill-based landmine clearing charity has spoken of its concern for aid workers based in Ukraine.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Documentaries about the conflict in Ukraine, the Cuban migrant situation and the Palestinian refugee crisis were among top winners at MiradasDoc, Spain’s foremost documentary film festival which wrapped its 15th edition on March 12. Based in Tenerife, Canary Islands, the festival was an in-person event running March 4-12, while its market (March 8-11) remained virtual for the second consecutive year.The best international documentary prize went to “Option Zero” (“La Opcion Cero”) by Cuban filmmaker Marcel Beltran while the best debut feature award was extended to “Trenches” by French journalist Loup Bureau who has covered the Arab Spring in Egypt, the Syrian War and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in the Donbas region. “Trenches” follows the intrepid young men and women who are fighting Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Manchester City footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko embraced with Everton player Vitaliy Mykolenko as their teams went head to head in a Premier League match on Saturday 26 February after their homeland of Ukraine was invaded by Russia. Oleksandr, 25, who is now reportedly on £20,00 a week at Manchester City, lives in the affluent village of Hale Barns near Altrincham in Greater Manchester, with his TV presenter and journalist wife Vlada Shcheglova along with their six month old daughter.

supports HTML5 videoSean Penn is continuing work on his documentary in Ukraine, holding a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.The president shared a silent video of the pair sat down together and talking, with a caption reading: ‘The more people know about the war in Ukraine, the more chances there are to stop Russia.’The meeting comes after Sean was pictured attending a press briefing at the Presidential Office in Kyiv.The director has been filming a documentary about Russian aggression in the country and was last seen there in November 2021.For the latest updates on the Russia-Ukraine war, visit our live blog: Russia-Ukraine liveAmid the invasion, he has now returned and was pictured in the front row of the briefing among reporters, wearing sunglasses as he listened intently.The Ukrainian government has expressed its gratitude for the project.A translated statement provided to Newsweek read: ‘Sean Penn demonstrates the courage that many others, especially Western politicians lack.‘The more such people in our country now, true friends of Ukraine, who support the struggle for freedom, the sooner it will be possible to stop Russia’s treacherous attack.’Sean, 61, previously met with Ukrainian military service personnel for his new VICE documentary.The actor and producer visited positions near the front line with Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk area.It is reported that Milk actor’s documentary will explore how the Donbas region has been impacted by the battles with pro-Moscow rebels.The actor made the visit to the settlement of Priazov.In images shared by the Ukrainian Joint Forces Operation Press Service, the I Am Sam actor was seen wearing a helmet and surrounded by military protection.A fierce battle

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are speaking out about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On Thursday, the couple released a brief statement on their Archewell Foundation website, titled: «We stand with the people of Ukraine.»«Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and all of us at Archewell stand with the people of Ukraine against this breach of international and humanitarian law and encourage the global community and its leaders to do the same,» reads the statement.The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are able to make such a declaration after officially stepping down from their roles as working members of the royal family last year. Royals usually do not comment on current events or politics, and no other member of the British royal family has publicly reacted to the situation in Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine to film a documentary on the Russian invasion. The director has been filming a documentary about Russian aggression in the country and was last seen there in November 2021.Amid the invasion, he has now returned and was pictured in the front row of the briefing among reporters, wearing sunglasses as he listened intently.The Ukrainian government has expressed its gratitude for the project.