PEN Ucraina – informații recente despre evoluția războiului

[PEN România a primit o sinteză recentă de la PEN Ucraina privind evoluția războiului. Întrucât conține informații verificate, o distribuim căre publicul larg. PEN România] On this day a month ago, Russia launched an unprovoked and unjustified full-scale war against our country after eight years of hybrid and military aggression, the occupation of Crimea and certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions. The Russian invasion has the potential of becoming bigger and deadlier than any other conflict that has taken place in Europe since World War II.

In the war against Ukraine, Russia’s war criminals continue using the same methods as did Nazi Germany. In the temporary occupied areas, Russians have forcefully deported several thousands of residents to Russian filtration camps. In the Luhansk, Donetsk, Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the occupants have withdrawn Ukrainian historical and fiction books from libraries.On 11 March, a Russian tank fired at a care home in Kreminna (Luhansk region), killing 56 eldery people. On 20 March, Russians bombed an art school in Mariupol (Donetsk region), where 400 people were sheltering. On 18 March, Russian shelling killed 96 year-old Ukrainian Holocaust survivor, Boris Romanchenko, in Kharkiv. On 23 March, the director of the Kherson Regional Academic Music and Drama Theater, Oleksandr Knyha, was kidnapped by Russian invaders and taken away in an unknown direction. Later he was freed.Russian occupants continue destroying Ukrainian cultural heritage. On 23 March, occupants destroyed the Kuindzhi Art Museum in Mariupol that housed original works by Ivan Aivazovsky, Mykola Hlushchenko, Tetyana Yablonska, Mykhailo Derehus, and others. It is currently unknown what happened to those paintings.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, thousands of Ukrainian civilians, among them at least 121 children, have been killed and more than 167 injured. The war has already produced over 3.6 million refugees. More than half of Ukraine’s children have been displaced after one month of war.On 14 March, founder of “Orientyr” publishing, Mykola Kravchenko, was killed by Russian troops while defending Kyiv. On 18 March, Sumy’s Arts College Professor, Ruslan Movchan, who joined the Ukrainian Army at the beginning of the war, was killed defending his homeland. On 23 March, Ukrainian gymnast Kateryna Dyachenko, 11 years old, was killed in Mariupol after her home was bombed by Russian terrorists.

During the month since the start of its large-scale invasion, Russia has committed 148 crimes against journalists and media in Ukraine, according to the Institute of Mass Information.On 16 March, in temporarily occupied Berdiansk, the FSB detained the Hromadske journalist Victoria Roshchyna. On 22 March, she was freed on condition that she record a video rejecting any grievances against the occupants. On 20 March, in the temporarily occupied Kakhovka (Kherson region), the previously abducted journalist, Oleh Baturyn, returned home. The journalist wrote about the torture and humiliation inflicted by the Russian occupants. On 21 March, 4 local journalists in temporarily occupied Melitopol, namely Yulia Olkhovska, Liubov Chaika, Mykhailo Kumok, and Yevhenia Borian, were abducted by Russian occupants and forced to spread Russian propaganda. After a “preventive talk” they were set free. On 22 March, in the Kyiv region, Max Levin, a photo journalist, went missing. Last time he was reachable was on 13 March. On 23 March, Russian journalist, Oksana Baulina, was killed amid a Russian attack on Kyiv.Find more information about Russian crimes against the media in our report.

War Diaries by Artem Chapeye (PEN Ukraine);Anne Applebaum “Ukraine Must Win” (The Atlantic);Andrey Kurkov “Exodus: the four kinds of Ukrainian refugee” (The Economist);‘Some of us never unpacked our suitcases’: Putin’s refugee crisis didn’t start in 2022 (CNN);Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Lori Hinnant ‘Why? Why? Why?’ Ukraine’s Mariupol descends into despair (Associated Press);Chilling account of Radio France fixer who was kidnapped and tortured by Russian soldiers in Ukraine (Reporters Without Borders);Oleksiy Panych “The West’s 3 Most Important Errors in Understanding Russia” (Ukraine World);Luba Kassova “Ukrainian Women on the Front Lines but Not in the Headlines” (Foreign Policy);Halya Coynash “Odesa Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths unite for Ukraine and against Russian aggression” (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group);Jonathan Jones “Cannibalism and genocide: the horrific visions of Ukraine’s best loved artist Maria Prymachenko” (The Guardian);Ostap Ukrainets “Zeitgeist. Dostoevsky as a reason for war” (Medium);Oleksiy Panych “What is to be ‘saved’ in the Russian culture?” (Raamop Rusland);Vladislav Davidzon, Kate Tsurkan “The Landscape of Ukrainian Literature” (Tablet);Ana Menéndez “War is no joke, but in Ukraine, humor is resistance” (Miami Herald);Carlotta Gall “The Lviv poet who spent years in a Gulag and now says he won’t leave Ukraine” (Irish Times);Response of Ukrainian artists to the war started by the Russian Federation (Ukrainer);Antje Rávik Strubel “Ich steige aus” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in German);Oleksandr Mykhed “Ein neues Tattoo” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in German);Lara Crinò “Intervista allo scrittore ucraino Andrei Kurkov: “L’incubo di una nuova Urss”” (La Repubblica in Italian).

We continue a series of conversations #DialoguesOnWar, where Ukrainian and foreign intellectuals talk about the experience of the war and share their own observations:Dialogues on War: Natalka Snyadanko and Margaret Atwood (Friday, 25 March, 5 PM Kyiv time);Dialogues on War: Oleksandr Mykhed and Witold Szabłowski (Wednesday, 30 March, 4 PM Kyiv time);Dialogues on War: Oleksiy Panych and Martin Pollack (video);Dialogues on War: Anna Vovchenko and Slavenka Drakulić (video);Dialogues on War: Maryana Savka and Henry Marsh (video);Dialogues on War: Maryana Savka and Henry Marsh (text);Dialogues on War: Ostap Slyvynsky and Olga Tokarczuk (video);Dialogues on War: Alim Aliev and Burhan Sönmez (video);Dialogues on War: Myroslav Marynovych and Serhii Plokhii (video);Dialogues on War: Victoria Amelina and Sofi Oksanen (video);Dialogues on War: Victoria Amelina and Sofi Oksanen (text);Dialogues on War: Oksana Forostyna and Marci Shore (video);Dialogues on War: Andriy Kurkov and Philippe Sands (video).

PEN Ukraine created a list of 40 Iconic Figures of Ukrainian Culture, which includes innovative artists, global stars and key figures of Ukrainian culture. Among them are world-renowned artists, outstanding painters and graphic artists, architects and sculptors, poets, prose writers, playwrights, actors, filmmakers, choreographers, composers, singers. The material is available at the link.

PEN Ukraine launched one page with the latest news and materials on Russia’s war against Ukraine with information on the situation in Ukraine, links on important materials and information resources, petitions, addresses, the list of editions about Ukraine to read in English, and books by Ukrainian authors recommended for translation. The page is being continuously updated with the latest news and links. Go to the page and share with colleagues: war.pen.org.ua.