![[Updated] 18 Telegram Accounts to Follow for the Latest War News From Ukraine](https://static.kyivpost.com/storage/2023/02/03/28c9f92bc3be4f103d06134ac4983be4.jpg?w=2560&f=webp)
- We have a dedicated Telegram channel and its job is to deliver breaking news about Ukraine fast. Stay informed, subscribe to our Telegram for the latest updates!
A facet of Ukraine’s national resilience – not particularly well known abroad, but so commonplace locally that the Ukrainians barely notice it themselves – is the depth and breadth of the national media space. Ukrainian journalism, content creation and blogging aren’t just alive and well, they’re going gangbusters.
Even before the Russian invasion, the only practical way for Ukrainian news professionals and informed citizens to even attempt to keep up with the information flood was to subscribe to hundreds of Telegram channels and, over months and years, winnow out the ones delivering the most useful news the fastest.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
Russia’s February 2022 invasion effectively threw that media spectrum into overdrive, making the Russo-Ukrainian War – at least for a person monitoring the right platforms and able to read Ukrainian and Russian – without doubt the best-documented conflict in human history.
As of 2024, about 70% of Ukrainians rely on Telegram for news, according to the New York Times – up from 44% in another research a year prior.
After a year of coverage, Kyiv Post’s reporters have clicked on an array of Telegram channels. Here are some that have, for one reason or another, stood the test of time.
And if you don’t speak Russian or Ukrainian, don’t worry – Telegram’s translate function (just press and hold on a post and select it from the menu, or right click the message for the option if you use it on a computer) is generally excellent.
Russian Drone Strike Damages Chornobyl Nuclear Waste Storage Facility
Disclaimer – Not all of these accounts are official media or personalities, and the information they post should be treated with a degree of skepticism until confirmed by multiple reliable sources. Additionally, some of it is extremely graphic.
Official Ukrainian Military and Government Channels
Third Separate Assault Brigade
A regular Ukrainian army assault brigade, formerly a Territorial Defense Battalion raised in and around Kyiv at the start of the war, with a good proportion of volunteers from the Azov political organization, runs this channel. The Third Separate Assault Brigade operates one of the most efficient and thorough information operations in the entire Ukrainian army, and combat footage available on this channel is often unique and second to none in quality.
47th Separate Mechanized Brigade ‘Mahura’
The 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, founded in 2022 after the full-scale war broke out, is a regular army unit with NATO-standard weapons and training. The unit has seen combat in the 2023 summer counteroffensive and the Kursk incursion in 2024. Their Telegram platform is a good baseline for information about the progress of a Ukrainian fighting unit as it makes the shift to Western training, equipment and tactics.
36th Separate Marine Infantry Brigade
Most of this unit was destroyed in the Siege of Mariupol from March to May 2022. The military high command has reconstituted the unit, rearmed it with tanks and armored personnel carriers, and for months the 36th held positions in the central Donbas sector. They are the Ukrainian army’s premier conventional amphibious warfare formation.
Main Directorate of Intelligence for the Defense Ministry of Ukraine (HUR)
This is the official channel of Ukraine’s national military intelligence agency. Its messages and their content are a good benchmark for the official Ukrainian government’s view of Russian plans, intentions and capacities. The platform also frequently publishes intelligence obtained from Russian soldiers, sometimes via telephone intercepts and sometimes from prisoners of war.
Stratkom ZSU (Strategic Communication of the Armed Forces of Ukraine)
This is a Ukrainian military channel publishing media reports approved by the army high command, including field reporting by army combat correspondents. When the Ukrainian military decides to publish particularly visual evidence of something, the content will very likely appear on this channel early.
Vitaly Kim and the Mykolaiv Regional Defense Command (Vitaly Kim, Mayor of Mykolaiv)
This is the official channel of the Mykolaiv Regional Defense Command and so a good source of government information on developments in the region. It is also a platform for the governor, Vitaly Kim, to publish frequent and often entertaining YouTube videos about events.
Well-informed Ukrainian Civilians and Journalists
Butusov Plyus (Yury Butusov)
Yury Butusov, arguably Ukraine’s leading combat correspondent and an excellent war reporter, runs this platform with the help of assistants. He has a long record of reporting the situation from the ground at locations most journalists fear to travel, and not pulling punches when army leadership could do better which, according to him, is often.
He also publishes video question-and-answer sessions in which he comments on war-related themes, usually with the authority of a reporter who has been on the ground recently. His contacts with the 92nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade, one of the Ukrainian army’s standout formations, are particularly close.
As of May 2024, Butusov has been mobilized into the Ukrainian military, where he is now serving as a rifleman in the 13th National Guard Brigade.
Tsaplienko_Ukraine Fights (Andriy Tsaplienko)
Andriy Tsaplienko is another Ukrainian journalist with a deep background in covering the Russian invasion since 2014. His Telegram platform and its content are very fast and wide-reaching. Less outspoken, and so more neutral than Butusov, Tsaplienko reports from the front intermittently, but the main focus of his feed is all-source information in a single place.
Pravda Gerashchenko (Anatoly Herashchenko)
Anatoly Herashchenko is an advisor to Ukraine’s Interior Minister but, since the start of the war, has been one of the most prolific and quickest sources of war-related and general information. Often, his sources seem to come directly from the Interior Ministry.
The anonymous channel provides live updates on Russian aerial strikes and is widely used by average Ukrainians, in part due to its fresh updates and warm tone with its audience. While the team behind the channel remains unclear, there are rumors that the channel is run by Mykolaiv Mayor Vitaly Kim and his team.
News Aggregators and Multi-Source Platforms
This is a collation platform with excellent overall coverage and little original reporting, but it offers the extremely useful function of clear and functional links to the source of the information.
This is an old-school Ukrainian news agency offering conventional news wire reporting on Ukraine. They probably have more people on the ground collecting information and passing it on than any other organization outside government intelligence. Fast, reliable and an excellent benchmark source for the day’s breaking news on Ukraine.
The platform appeared in the early days of the war, it said, to help Russian families find sons, husbands, brothers or fathers serving in the Russian military and missing in the war. It’s not fully clear how they’re getting all the information they publish, but much of it is culled from Ukrainian fighting units: Russian soldiers taken prisoner, confirmed hit in combat, or listed as dead in action. Warning: Some of the content is gory.
WarLife 18+ Rossiya Ukraina Voina 18+
This collation platform appears to seek out the most violent and shocking war footage from all sources. However, the channel is fast and thorough, and so a good source for confirming fighting reported elsewhere.
Astra is an independent journalist-run Telegram channel focusing on delivering accurate information on the situation in Russia, and on events affecting Russians. Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin considers the channel’s operators traitors and enemies of the state. However, the Astra team has for more than three years delivered fast-paced and reasonably verified, accurate reports on Russian army military developments.
An additional useful aspect of the Astra platform is that, since its content is essentially conventional news out of Russia without over bias, the gap between an Astra report and an official Kremlin narrative is almost always an excellent measure of how much the Russian state official narrative differs from probable reality, on any given subject.
Pro-Russia platforms
This channel has close links with “state”-controlled media in Donetsk city and sends reporters near and to the front line from time to time. Views are virulently anti-Ukrainian, but at times the platform offers images and reporting of Ukrainian army strikes, as well as military activities from both sides, not available elsewhere. Editors publish a front overview daily which is more detailed and less propaganda-bombast than conventional Russian state media or government statements.
This is a channel run by Russian war correspondent Roman Kulikovsky. The platform offers one of the most thorough – although not always accurate – daily situation estimates available on open sources on either side. Details are substantial and aimed at readers familiar with military tactics and weaponry. Although adamantly pro-Russia since the start of the war, the platform is traditionally one of the first to concede Russian army problems and failures.
A personal channel run by veteran Russian war correspondent Simon Pegov, it is vociferously pro-Russian military and anti-Ukrainian, though frequently critical of the Russian army high command. He likes to present Russian soldiers as heroes and liberators. Pegov was wounded by shell splinters late 2022, which led, among other outcomes, to a meeting with Vladimir Putin and a medal.
You can also highlight the text and press Ctrl + Enter
