We met some of our community members advocating for Ukraine in DC – Thank you for standing with us: Here's what you helped us achieve last week (Patreon)

Dear Kyiv Independent community members,

We hope everyone has been doing well! Earlier this week was the Ukraine Action Summit in Washington, D.C., where 500 people from 47 states gathered to put pressure on their congressional representatives to pass another aid package for Ukraine. Our community manager Brooke Manning was in attendance as part of the Arizona delegation. It was so great to meet some of our community members in person! Thank you to those who said hello!

Pictured above, advocates gather in front of the Capitol building on the morning of April 15.

This week we'd like to give a warm welcome to the 123 new members. We're proud to be reader-funded – our community provides us a sense of stability, despite the instability of living through war.

Here are some highlights from the Kyiv Independent this week:

We reported from Karlskoga, Sweden on a Swedish ammunition plant leading Europe's push to increase shell production. Francis Farrell's article looks at a large-caliber ammunition factory in the middle of its transition to produce more 155mm shells, a munition in critically short supply.

One of our most popular stories last week was Asami Terajima's field report from Donetsk Oblast, which explains how the lack of resources on the front line has made it nearly impossible to evacuate wounded soldiers.

We wrote about the anticipated major Russian offensive. Asami Terajima's article looks at the looming Russian offensive, predicted to start in June – or even sooner, according to Ukrainian military analysts – with predictions that Russia will attempt to advance towards Chasiv Yar, as U.S. military aid to Ukraine continues to stall in Congress.

We wrote an explainer on Shahed drones. Asami Terajima's explainer breaks down how the cheap, but effective Iranian drones – the same ones Iran used to attack Israel earlier this week – have become a key weapon in mass air assaults in Russia's war in Ukraine.

We also explained Russia's strategy of "double-tap" attack – a ruthless and illegal military tactic that involves hitting a building, waiting for first responders to arrive, before hitting it again, to inflict maximum damage. Dinara Khalilova's article looks at the up-tick of these attacks in recent weeks and how Russia initially developed this tactic in Syria in 2015.

We interviewed the CEO of MacPaw, a company that develops software for Apple operating systems. Oleksandr Kosovan said that "the IT industry (as a whole) remains Ukraine's only fully operational export branch, despite the war," with an increase in cybersecurity startups and investment opportunities as a result.

Thank you for standing by our side as we bring independent, locally sourced news about Ukraine to the world.