The Russian tanks and missiles besieging Ukraine also are threatening the food supply and livelihoods of people in Europe, Africa and Asia who rely on the vast, fertile farmlands of the Black Sea region — known as the “breadbasket of the world.”
The already challenging path to bringing home Americans jailed in Russia and Ukraine is even more complicated now with a war overwhelming the region and increasingly hostile relations between the United States and the Kremlin.
When Russia launched its war on Ukraine, a Syrian student in the city of Kharkiv joined the exodus of people fleeing the onslaught. It was the third time that 24-year-old Orwa Staif, who grew up in the suburbs of Damascus, was being displaced by war and crises.
Growing up in Taiwan, Huang Yu-lin has become accustomed to chatter about potential military conflict with mainland China. But it wasn't until Russia invaded Ukraine that she started to seriously consider what she would do in such a scenario.
To Olena, it feels like Vladimir Putin has been chasing her for years. Fed up with Putin's government, the Russian citizen left her native country six years ago and moved to Ukraine. Then, last week, she was on the move again — fleeing her adopted home of Kyiv ahead of Putin's invaders.
The director of Ukraine's largest art museum walked its hallways, supervising as staff packed away its collections to protect their national heritage in case the Russian invasion advances west.
