William Fleeson

Washington, D.C.

Writer at Freelance

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Articles

Choosing life on Ukraine’s front lines

3 weeks ago | wng.org | William Fleeson

When Liza Andreeva fled her eastern hometown of Kharkiv in March 2022, the evacuation train she took with her mother and 3-year-old brother was so full, people sat and slept in the aisles. The refugees leaned against the walls, their luggage, and each other. Those with children or pets did their best to keep them quiet, to avoid disturbing fellow passengers already stressed to the breaking point. Andereeva spent the next 18 months as a displaced person in Poland, then Germany.
Ukraine’s time to build up

3 weeks ago | wng.org | William Fleeson

The bridge traffic across the Irpin River flows as smoothly as the water underneath it. Cars, trucks, and buses pass over the bridge’s newer half, carrying people and goods in and out of Irpin, a suburb of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, that lies a dozen miles southeast. A high metal wall skirting the new span blocks passengers’ view of the mass of rubble, twisted rebar, and concrete wreckage that stretches alongside them.
Determined to endure

1 month ago | wng.org | Mary Reichard |William Fleeson

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday, the 29th of April. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard. NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up first, elusive peace. In a moment, a conversation with our correspondent in Ukraine, but first, the latest in efforts to end the war. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a three-day ceasefire will take hold in May to mark the 80th anniversary of victory in World War II.
Air raids and ABCs

1 month ago | wng.org | William Fleeson

Eric Moore leads me from the ground floor to the basement, tracing the steps students at Kyiv Christian Academy (KCA) take nearly every day. Each time air raid sirens blare across Ukraine’s capital city, students grab their backpacks, books, laptops, and lunchboxes and head to an underground shelter until officials give the all-clear. The shelter also serves as a classroom so that no matter how long they’re down there, the students can continue to learn.
Dreaming of peace in Ukraine

2 months ago | wng.org | William Fleeson

When air raid sirens begin wailing in the middle of the night, Svetlana Prokopiv wakes her children and leads them downstairs. The 45-year-old divorced mother of two, with a bottle-blond pixie haircut and a permanent smile, lives on the top floor of an apartment building in the Shevchenko district of central Kyiv. What was once a desirable family dwelling has become, under Russian airstrikes, increasingly vulnerable because of its height and its distance from shelter at or below street level.
Ukrainians wrestle with the cost of peace

Feb 24, 2025 | wng.org | William Fleeson

Sound journalism, grounded in facts and Biblical truth | Donate You have {{ remainingArticles }} free {{ counterWords }} remaining. You've read all of your free articles. We can’t release more of our sound journalism without a subscription, but we can make it easy for you to come aboard. Get started for as low as $3.99 per month. Current WORLD subscribers can log in to access content. Just go to "SIGN IN" at the top right. Already a member? Sign in. Nazar Zabavsky looks too young to be headed...
Thoughts of going home

Feb 18, 2025 | wng.org | Paul Butler |William Fleeson

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:Ukrainians consider what’s next. Since the war started, nearly 7 million men, women, and children have left Ukraine, and nearly 1 million have sought refuge in nearby Poland. With conversations about ending the war in progress, what do these displaced Ukrainians have to say? MARY REICHARD, HOST: Will Fleeson is a Correspondent for WORLD, reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine. Will, good morning. WILL FLEESON: Good morning, Mary.
Ukrainians in Poland mull future amid talk of peace

Feb 13, 2025 | wng.org | William Fleeson

On a cold and darkening Friday afternoon, school-aged children prepared to go home. They buttoned their jackets and wished each other goodbye, the older ones already buried in their cellphones and earbuds. This typical school scene, which could have played out nearly anywhere, took place last week in Warsaw, Poland, at a site run by the large nonprofit Polish Center for International Aid (its Polish acronym is PCPM).
What will a peace deal mean for Ukraine’s evangelicals?

Jan 30, 2025 | wng.org | William Fleeson

OLENA, A CHRISTIAN WOMAN who lives outside Kherson, endured eight months of Russian occupation. For most of 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Christians in Kherson suffered the constant threat of harassment, torture, and even murder at the hands of their Russian occupiers. WORLD has agreed not to use Olena’s real name out of ongoing fear for her safety. Despite the threats, Olena’s church maintained its humanitarian care to locals—believers or not.
A Week Off the Tourist Trail in El Cuco, El Salvador

Sep 6, 2024 | matadornetwork.com | William Fleeson

But the same spotlight that piqued my interest also made me wary. Did I want to go to a place where the best-known spots were becoming increasingly crowded? What else did the country offer, away from the deepening grooves of the tourist trail? Once famously dangerous, though now safe under strong-arm tactics from a government that some say has jailed innocent people, El Salvador’s recent tough-on-crime laws have helped make it an up-and-coming tourist destination.