The elucidation of detailed mechanisms of ultrafast events that occur in molecular charge transfer or reaction dynamics has been made possible by recent advances in spectroscopy techniques that use ultrashort laser pulse generation. Ultrashort laser pulses (100 femtoseconds duration, 1 fs=10^-15 s) allow initiation of selective photochemical processes (photoejection of epithermal electrons), and obtaining of unique information on the dynamics of primary steps of radical reactions involving ultrafast electron or proton-transfer: formation of the hydration cage around an electron, encounter pair formation, ion-molecule reactions. Recent investigations on the non-equilibrium reaction processes in the universal protic solvent (water) are presented.