One year into a seemingly endless war, we decode the conflict.

One year into a seemingly endless war, we decode the conflict.

Our correspondents and youth voices tackled many facets of this complicated conflict. We give out the breadth of our Ukraine coverage to help you sort it out. People in Brovary, Ukraine on 19 February 2023 kneel at a funeral procession for the body of a man killed...

As the world marks the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we’ve put together a compilation of News Decoder coverage of the war this year. Help your students decode this complicated news event with a look at the conflict through the eyes of refugees, expats, international law and neighboring countries.

Exercise: Begin with a class discussion around the unifying question, “How might war affect countries beyond combat on the battlefield?” Students might come up with answers like: food rationing, being forced to relocate etc. Then, divide your class into four groups, each corresponding to one subheading of the article compilation (i.e. Ukrainians united, Russia responds, Refugee havens and Beyond Ukraine’s borders). In each group, have students choose one article to read together from their respective subcategory, taking notes as they go. As students read, have them synthesize the main idea of the article to share with the rest of the class. Have 1-2 spokespeople from each group share out after all students finish reading, framing their contributions around the initial class question.

Could Ukraine war spread to space and endanger satellites?

Could Ukraine war spread to space and endanger satellites?

Despite conflicts on Earth, satellites orbit in peace. But use of Elon Musk’s Starlink to aid Ukraine has Russia looking to the sky with hostile eyes. A rocket booster carrying three Gonets-M satellites and the first Skif-D satellite of the Sfera programme lifts...

While all kinds of international conflicts occur on the ground, up in space things have been pretty peaceful. We depend on peace in the skies because such things as social media, multiplayer video games, Google classrooms and Zoom sessions rely on satellites bouncing signals across the earth. Correspondent Tira Shubart tells us why tensions on the ground in Ukraine could disturb the tacit and explicit agreements over satellites in the sky. 

Exercise: Let’s imagine that each student has been hired to draw up an international agreement to govern and protect satellites that need to cross the skies over international borders. What are the five most important considerations that would have to be included in this treaty? Some things to consider are: The citizens in every country want fast and reliable Internet; people want their privacy protected; and countries are concerned about the possible military use of satellites.

This émigré finds meaning supplying war matériel to Ukraine

This émigré finds meaning supplying war matériel to Ukraine

Dmytro Shelukhin is a Ukrainian working for a UK investment bank. But like many émigrés, he is finding meaning helping his home nation fight Russia. Dmytro Shelukhin on the way to Ukraine with war materiel (photo courtesy of Dmytro Shelukhin) For the past eight years,...

Like many big global news stories, the war in Ukraine has released a tsunami of ink, making it difficult for journalists to find a fresh angle. Jeffrey Mo, a fellow at the University of Toronto, manages to break new ground with a simple story about a Ukrainian émigré who sends war matériel to armed forces in his embattled home country. Mo lets Dmytro Shelukhin, a Ukrainian working for a UK investment bank, be the protagonist of the story, which discreetly underscores both the high stakes involved in the conflict and the depth of Ukrainian defiance.

Exercise: Ask your students to identify an issue dominating the news around the world – such as climate change or human rights – and to find a local angle. Then they should interview someone directly involved in the local matter and write a story capturing that person’s experiences and thoughts.

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