Mary Louise Kelly

When 22-year-old college student Vitaliy Shutov went to bed last night, he didn't think a Russian invasion of Ukraine would actually happen. Then he woke to the sounds of explosions.

Three decades ago, the newly independent country of Ukraine was briefly the third-largest nuclear power in the world. A lot has changed since then.

NPR reported from Donbas just a few weeks ago. We hear the voices of people we met there, after the news that Russia has increased shelling in the area.

This past weekend, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wasn't a leading scientific voice on the pandemic — he was another worried parent whose young daughter had just tested positive for COVID.

Aging can be hardest for strivers, says social scientist Arthur Brooks, because they sometimes mourn that their biggest successes are in their rearview mirror.

Jeremy Konyndyk, executive director of USAID's COVID task force, shares his perspective on the U.S.' efforts to donate and distribute vaccines to low-income nations.

NPR travelled towards the "temporarily occupied territories" on the Ukraine-Russia border, where the people who live there are in limbo – cut off from both Ukraine and Russia, cut off from the world.

The standoff between Ukraine and Russia is about global security and an attempt to "rewrite rules on which the world is based," says Ukraine's foreign minister.

Russia is threatening to invade Ukraine. But in the eastern region of Donbas, war has been underway since Russia-backed separatists moved in and declared breakaway republics in 2014.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports from Donbas region of Ukraine as its residents live under the threat of a Russian incursion and cope with eight years of tensions and fighting along the border.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Dmytro Kuleba, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, about the global stakes of Ukraine's standoff with Russia and his call for U.S. support.

It Russia takes the path of aggression, it will face "extremely severe consequences immediately," says the U.S. charge d'affaires Kristina Kvien.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Hanna Hopko, an original leader of Ukraine's EuroMaidan protests in 2014 about whether Ukrainians can stand up to the threat of Russian aggression.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Congressmen Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Congressman Mark Green, R-Tenn., about their trip to Ukraine as the country faces the threat of a Russian invasion.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Eric Gales — who was once a guitar prodigy — about reclaiming a career that was stalled by drug addiction and prison time.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Kristina Kvien who, as the Charge d'Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, is the top American official on the ground in Kyiv.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Ukrainian politician Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze about Ukraine's relationship with the world, which she and many others are counting on as Russia threatens to invade.

Amid the crisis with Russia, some Ukrainians say their president has come up short. Others, like some of the ones skating in front of the office of the president, say they still support him.

Ukraine's former prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk says the military is stronger than it was the last time Russia invaded in 2014. But he still thinks the U.S. should help should Russia make advances.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk about the threat of a Russian invasion.