Team
Francis Farrell
ReporterFrancis Farrell is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He has worked as managing editor at the online media project Lossi 36, and as a freelance journalist and documentary photographer. He has previously worked in OSCE and Council of Europe field missions in Albania and Ukraine, and is an alumnus of Leiden University in The Hague and University College London. The Kyiv Independent received a grant from the Charles Douglas-Home Memorial Trust to support Farrell's front-line reporting for the year 2024-2025. Francis is the co-author of War Notes, the Kyiv Independent's weekly newsletter about the war.
Articles
As Russia closes in on Pokrovsk, battle for key city enters its final act
Editor’s Note: In accordance with the security protocols of the Ukrainian military, soldiers featured in this story are identified by first names and callsigns only.
POKROVSK, Donetsk Oblast – Light rain and the dying light of a cool summer evening accompany the Ukrainian drone team’s preparation to begin their shift.
The men are silent as the military pick-up truck, full of drones and other supplies, turns off the village track onto the main road south into Pokrovsk.
Every trip in and out of
Beneath the problematic surface, the New York Times’ Kursk reporting reveals a deeper moral rot
Editor’s Note: Following the publication of this opinion piece and another article on our website criticizing The New York Times, the publication responded to The Kyiv Independent with a statement sent via email. The full response has been included in this article.
I really don't want to write what I'm about to write. As someone who regularly tries to get close to the active combat zone of Russia's war against Ukraine, tell the stories of those in the middle of it — soldiers and civilians — and
Analysis: Ahead of Trump's 'major' Russia announcement, what will happen next to Ukraine?
Amid ever-escalating aerial assaults, accelerating Russian advances in the east, and the weariness that comes with nearly 3.5 years of war, all eyes in Ukraine are once again focused upon one man — U.S. President Donald Trump.
"I think I'll have a major statement to make on Russia on Monday," Trump said in an interview with NBC News on July 10, the latest development in a tortuously long and so far wholly ineffective U.S.-led peace process.
Short of a massive injection of military aid, or crus
What Russian bombardment feels like in Kyiv
The Kyiv Independent staff documented what it feels like to live and sleep in Kyiv, Ukraine, as Russia intensifies its drone and missile attacks on the city. Filmed over several weeks in June and July, our journalists take shelter in bathrooms, basements, and parking garages as explosions ring out overhead.
Ukraine's artillery braces for shell shortage as US halts aid
The Kyiv Independent's Francis Farrell and Olena Zashko spent a day with an artillery crew from the 28th Mechanized Brigade in the front-line city of Kostiantynivka. Following the recent decision by the Pentagon to halt shipments of certain weapons to Ukraine, a looming shell shortage is once again on the horizon for Ukrainian forces.
Warfare in Ukraine has changed… again
The Kyiv Independent’s Francis Farrell explains a new modification of the standard first-person view (FPV) drone that already once transformed the way war is fought. Fiber optic cable now used to connect drone operators to FPVs ensures a perfect image and control experience all the way to the target — and cannot be spotted by enemy drone detectors.
Donetsk Oblast city ‘on brink of humanitarian catastrophe,’ governor says as drones cripple infrastructure
"The Russians are trying to fully control all movement in the city using their drones," a military spokesperson told the Kyiv Independent.
Inside the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine
Forged from the remnants of the Soviet Spetsnaz, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces have become a vital pillar of the country’s current defense, playing their role in some of the war’s most decisive engagements – from Kyiv to Donbas, and to Kursk Oblast in Russia.
'All of Ukraine is ours' — Putin on Russia's territorial ambitions in Ukraine
Editor's Note: This story was updated with comments from Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said "all of Ukraine" belonged to Russia in a speech on June 20 at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, amid increasingly aggressive official statements about Moscow's final territorial ambitions in Ukraine.
Putin's claim was based on the false narrative often pushed both by himself as leader and by Russian propaganda that Russians and Ukrainians are "one people
From buffer zone to new front: Russia pushes deeper into Sumy Oblast
In March 2025, as Ukrainian forces made their final retreat from Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, new grey spots began to appear on open-source maps on the other side of the state border, in Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast.
For the first time since 2022, when Moscow’s forces retreated frantically from northern Ukraine, Russian troops have once again set their sights on Sumy Oblast.
But for months, as Kyiv continued to claim hold of a thin sliver of Kursk Oblast and Russia’s spring offensive escalated in
‘Find and destroy’ – how Ukraine’s own Peaky Blinders mastered the art of bomber drones
Editor’s note: In accordance with the security protocols of the Ukrainian military, soldiers featured in this story are identified by first names and callsigns only.
DONETSK OBLAST – From the moment the vehicles duck into pre-prepared positions in the leafy treeline to the first dead Russian soldiers, less than twenty minutes pass.
\With the morning sun steadily rising after the team of six complete their short commute to work, the equipment is set up in a clockwork-like rhythm: long telescopi
Ultimate guide on how drones changed warfare in Ukraine
The Kyiv Independent’s Francis Farrel provides an ultimate guide on how drones have changed the warfare in Ukraine — starting with an embed with a drone unit of the National Guard’s 14th Chervona Kalyna Brigade and providing even more insights with a step-by-step simulation on how fighting for an average village in Ukraine looks like now, three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion.
47th Brigade battalion commander’s resignation puts Ukraine’s military leadership under new scrutiny
Ukraine’s military has once again been rocked by a scandal around its leadership culture, with another high-profile commander speaking out against the country’s top brass over bad orders leading to excess losses.
On May 16, well-renowned officer Oleksandr Shyrshyn, callsign “Genius,” announced his resignation from his position as battalion commander of Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade.
"I’ve never received dumber orders than the ones in our current sector,” wrote Shyrshyn, whose brigade was m
As Russia’s fiber optic drones flood the battlefield, Ukraine is racing to catch up
Editor’s Note: In accordance with the security protocols of the Ukrainian military, soldiers featured in this story are identified by first names and callsigns only.
Every year, as the way war is fought constantly evolves on the battlefields of Ukraine, the visuals of the fighting on the ground that constantly flood the internet transform with it.
In the frantic first weeks of the full-scale invasion, it was Russian tanks stolen by farmers tossing their turrets after Ukrainian Javelin strikes.
With Ukraine’s Peaky Blinders chasing Russian soldiers near Pokrovsk
The Kyiv Independent's Francis Farrell and Olena Zashko spent a day with one of Ukraine's most effective drone units, "Peaky Blinders." As Russian forces continue to push across the front line, Peaky Blinders are tasked with stopping Russian assaults near the embattled city of Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast.
