The war in Ukraine upended all aspects of daily life for Ukrainians, journalists included. In a matter of days, The Kyiv Independent newsroom went from being a three-month-old startup with only around 30,000 visits per week, to one of the world's most important on-the-ground sources for the conflict with millions of followers. Alexander Query, a French reporter working for The Kyiv Independent, joined us on Perspective to talk about how the war has transformed the media outlet.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has unified the Western alliance, with relations between the United States and Germany at the forefront. Their shared geopolitical vision is counting on big commitments both sides have made.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, over 7 million people have fled the country. Multiple reports have outlined the specific difficulties that African refugees faced as they attempted to cross the Polish border and enter the European Union. Georgina Robertson and Sophie Samaille take a look at a Facebook post falsely claiming that refugees from Africa were shot at by Polish police.

The executive body of the European Union has recommended that Ukraine be granted EU candidate status. Kyiv has sought candidate status since 2014.

The war with Russia is now mostly being fought in the country's east, meaning many who fled the invasion can return home to see what's left and try to rebuild. Ukrainian authorities say at least 2 million have returned in the last few weeks. Jan-Philipp Scholz reports from Bucha.

The Cypriot government says the vast majority of migrants enter the island's breakaway north via Turkey and then seek asylum in the EU-backed south. Arrivals doubled to about 10,000 in the first five months of this year.

The European Commission has recommended candidate status for Ukraine. Just over three months after being invaded by Russia, Kyiv has cleared the first hurdle on the road to membership.

Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief has called for Russia to end its blockade of Ukrainian ports. His comments come ahead of a meeting of the bloc's 27 foreign ministers.

For the latest edition of Europe Now, we head to Poland and Hungary. These two EU members both border Ukraine and have both taken in large numbers of Ukrainian refugees. But on more political issues, their governments' responses to the war have been drastically different. Our team meets lawmakers from across the political spectrum of both countries to discover why the Polish and Hungarian governments have taken such different stances. We also explore other key issues, such as the ever-expanding EU files on degradations of rule of law.

In the first case of its kind, German prosecutors have seized several apartments belonging to a Russian lawmaker. So far other sanctioned assets have simply been frozen.

Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia have criticized the slow progress on their EU membership bids. With Ukraine on the fast track, Western Balkan leaders are meeting with their EU counterparts — but hold out little hope.

EU leaders are in Brussels to discuss the membership bids of Ukraine and Moldova. Meanwhile, the European Parliament has voted heavily in favor of the two countries' getting candidate status.