Ukraine

class=”MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-h1 mui-style-1wnv7m0″>The long fight for arts and culture in Ukraine as war rages on

When Russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine began on Feb. 24, 2022, the pursuits of many of Ukraine's leading artists and cultural institutions came to a halt. The World takes a look back at the myriad ways in which war impacted artistic and cultural expression in Ukraine, and how advocates continue to work tirelessly to keep making art against all odds.

The WorldMay 25, 2023 · 4:00 PM EDT

• By The World staff

Ilona Kravchenko and Jan Vana perform in “Giselle” with the Ukrainian Classical Ballet in Bucharest, Romania.

Elena Graham/The World

Ukrainian musicians Taras Shevchenko and Kateryna Pavlenko from the band Go-A were thinking about starting a new folk electronica project back in February of 2022. But on Feb. 24, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion in Ukraine, the pursuits of many of Ukraine's leading artists and cultural institutions came to a halt.

Since the war began, artists and cultural workers swiftly shifted their focus to contributing to war efforts, while also working to maintain and promote Ukraine's unique artistic and cultural heritage. 

The World takes a look back at the myriad ways in which war impacted artistic and cultural expression in Ukraine, and how advocates worked tirelessly to keep making art against all odds.

Ukrainian musicians Taras Shevchenko and Kateryna Pavlenko founded Go-A, a folk-electronica band. 

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

A race to save cultural heritage 

In early March, as Moscow escalated its bombardment of civilian areas, museums and churches in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv were targeted. Residents of Lviv raced to ensure their city did not suffer the same fate. For a city synonymous with music and the arts, the most common sound in the city became hammering and drilling.

Workers construct metal scaffolding around the statue of Greek goddess Amphitrite in the medieval Market Square in Lviv, Ukraine.

Credit:

Andrew Connelly/The World

Artists on the front lines 

Ukraine's military made it mandatory for all men to stay in Ukraine to serve in the war. But when the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra mobilized to go on tour as part of a cultural diplomacy mission, the Defense Ministry granted special permission for its male members to leave the country.

The Kyiv Symphony Orchestra rehearses at the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, Poland, the day before the premiere performance of the "Voice of Ukraine" tour that took them to nine cities across Poland and Germany, April 20, 2022.

Credit:

Emily Johnson/The World

Other musicians, like Taras Topolia, the lead singer of the Antytila band, immediately joined Ukraine's military and served on the front lines. At the same time, Topolia continued to advocate for Ukraine through his music.

Some of the Ukrainian band Antytila's members have been serving on the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Credit:

Antytila on Twitter 

Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, who might just be Ukraine’s biggest rock star, also volunteered and joined Ukraine's armed forces, where he became a lieutenant. Most of his service entailed helping troops and civilians living near the front lines. To provide emotional support to the troops, Vakarchuk performed a song “Chovan,” meaning “Boat,” near the Antonivskyi bridge, in the Kherson region, which was destroyed by Russian forces.

Ukrainian singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

As intense fighting in Ukraine tore apart entire villages, Ukraine's underground rave scene got behind Repair Together, a volunteer group that hosted "clean-up raves," a mix of traditional clean-up efforts with dance parties, to relieve stress and connect with others.

Repair Together hosts a clean-up rave in Ivanivka, Chernihivska oblast.

Credit:

Repair Together/YouTube

Translating war, protecting literature  

The war in Ukraine sparked a new wave of interest in Ukrainian history, culture and writing. Ukrainian literary translators have been working on overdrive as the war drove new demand for Ukrainian publications. US-based writer Dralyuk has been translating poetry and literature from both Russian and Ukrainian into English.

A visitor reads a book at a book fair during a Publishers Forum in Lviv, Ukraine, Sept. 19, 2018. Since the war in Ukraine began nearly six months ago, the demand for Ukrainian translations and literature has increased.

Credit:

Mykola Tys/AP

Creating normalcy amid war

During rehearsals at Odesa’s opera house, it was sometimes easy to forget that Ukraine was a country at war. Inside the elegant, neo-Baroque building from the late 19th century, the conflict outside felt distant. Odesa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater is located in Ukraine’s busiest port city, which became an early target of Russia’s military, but it continues to be a central cultural hub.

The Odesa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater is known as the heart of the cultural city of Odesa, Ukraine.

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

Finding home on international stages

When war broke out in Ukraine, the Shchedryk Children’s Choir from Kyiv was poised to celebrate its 50th anniversary with a world tour. Conductor Saul Zaks went on a mission to make sure the world continued to experience the choir’s "magical" sounds. By December 2022, the choir headed to Carnegie Hall to celebrate a Christmas sensation known as “Carol of the Bells.”

Children’s choir Shchedryk rehearses on Thursday evening at St. Paul’s in New York City. 

Credit:

Emily Johnson/The World

Ukrainian ballet dancers displaced by the fighting found a home on international stages. The Ukrainian Classical Ballet went on a charity tour in Italy and Romania in May, with the company in Bucharest, for a performance of “Giselle.” 

The Ukrainian Classical Ballet company holds up the Ukrainian flag onstage during curtain call while the Ukrainian national anthem plays as part of a performance in Bucharest, Ukraine.

Credit:

Elena Graham/The World

And despite six months of grueling war with Russia, several acts from Ukraine were represented at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival, the world’s largest arts festival, held yearly in Scotland. For the performers, it was a bittersweet experience.

Some Ukrainian students were evacuated from Ukraine thanks to a Czech circus company, Cirk La Putyka. “Boom," a performance they took to Edinburgh, was rewritten to reflect the students’ perspectives of war and displacement.

Credit:

Andrew Connelly/The World

Raising spirits

Artists from Ukraine’s hip-hop scene have also been speaking up. The genre, which became popular in the country by the late 1990s, largely emerged from the easter city of Kharkiv, not far from the Russian border. Alyona Savranenko, known by the stage name Alyona Alyona, has been using her music to raise the spirits of her people as the war goes on.

The popular 28-year-old Alyona Savranenko prides herself on defying the stereotype of what rappers look like in Eastern Europe and the rest of the world.

Credit:

Courtesy of Alyona Alyona/Instagram

This article was originally published on Feb. 21, 2023 and has been updated.

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class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>Ukraine's air defense adapts with more sophisticated technology, equipment

Over the weekend, President Joe Biden announced that the US will support a joint effort to train Ukrainian pilots. Administration officials also said that the US will allow its allies to supply Ukraine with advanced fighter jets, including US-made F-16s. The battle for air superiority in Ukraine has been ongoing since Russia's invasion, and now, Ukraine hopes that F-16s can help them counteract Russia's advantages. 

The WorldMay 22, 2023 · 2:45 PM EDT

• By Daniel Ofman

Juice is a 30-year-old Ukrainian fighter pilot. Juice is his call sign. He doesn’t reveal his name or his face because of security concerns. 

Anastasia Vlasova/The World

The US has once again buckled under pressure from European allies and Ukraine's leaders and agreed to provide more sophisticated weapons to the war effort. This time, it's all about F-16 fighter jets.

Ukraine has long asked for advanced fighter jets to give it a combat edge as it battles Russia's invasion, now in its second year. And this new plan opens the door for several nations to supply the fourth-generation aircraft and for the US to help train the pilots. President Joe Biden laid out the agreement to world leaders meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, on Friday, according to US officials.

So far, however, the US has provided no details and said decisions on when, how many, and who will supply the F-16s will be made in the months ahead while the training is underway. Details on the training are equally elusive. 

In Hiroshima, Biden was asked whether these decisions could potentially escalate the war.

“I have a flat assurance from [Ukrainian President] Zelenskiy that they will not use it to go on and move into Russian geographic territory, but wherever Russian troops are within Ukraine and the area, they will be able to do that,” Biden said.

Zelenskiy said that his priority is to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense as Russia continues to bombard Ukraine from the sky. The battle for air superiority in Ukraine has been ongoing since Russia's invasion, and now, Ukraine hopes that F-16s can help them counteract Russia's advantages. 

Already, US equipment has been instrumental in Ukraine’s air defense.

Earlier this month, Ukraine shot down multiple Russian hypersonic missiles called Kinzhal, meaning “dagger” — which Russian President Vladimir Putin has called “unstoppable.” The missiles were reportedly shot down with the American-supplied Patriot air defense system.

Valery Romanenko is a Ukrainian aviation and air defense expert.

“Last year, we were able to hit only the Russian planes, helicopters and cruise missiles. Now, we can hit all the Russian types of attack weapon, ballistic missiles including.”

Romanenko said that air warfare in Ukraine is evolving in other key ways as well.

“The Ukrainian Russian war is the first war of drones. Russians use both attack and recon drones and are very dangerous for us.”

Russia has often deployed these drones to damage Ukraine’s electric grid.

But in recent months, Ukraine has mostly withstood these attacks.

“Our air defense confirmed their high efficiency. For example, [in the] last two drone attacks, all 100% of drones were destroyed.”

Ukraine isn’t just defending itself from drones. It’s also using them as a weapon.

Juice is a 30-year-old Ukrainian fighter pilot. Juice is his call sign. He doesn’t reveal his name or his face because of security concerns.

Credit:

Anastasia Vlasova/The World

Yaroslav Markevych commands a drone unit in the northeastern city of Kharkiv.

Markevych said that at drone command centers, they’re able to provide intelligence to troops fighting on the front lines. They use drones to gather intelligence, and then that information is uploaded to a digital map that Ukraine’s military uses.

“We can see our enemy’s positions,” Markevych said, adding, “As a result, our decision-making is much more effective.”

Drones are also useful when soldiers are low on heavy ammunition. They use the drones as a replacement for artillery — they’re rigged with grenades and other munitions that can be dropped on enemy positions.

But he said, “The enemy is also adapting.”

Russia jams Ukrainian signals, which is the most effective way to take out drones. Markevych said that he believes that drones are the future of modern warfare. But the military insists it also needs modern jets to win the war. 

 Yaroslav Markevych commands a drone unit in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine.

Credit:

Anastasia Vlasova/The World

“We needed to start the process like a half year ago, and nowadays, we would have combat-ready pilots,” said a 30-year-old fighter pilot who goes by his call sign, Juice. He didn’t reveal his name because of security concerns.

“At the moment, we have almost no air-to-air capabilities against the Russian air force,” Juice said. “We are absolutely not able to counteract Russian fighters and bombers, because of very outdated radars, because of very outdated and not capable at all air to air missiles.”

That’s why Juice is so adamant that Ukraine needs modern jets like the F-16. But until Ukraine has those jets in hand, Juice said that the country’s fighter pilots will still manage to pull off some successful missions.

“Usually, it’s like one mission per day, and you’re ready to get in your jet in like a few minutes and just to take off as soon as possible to intercept missiles or drones.”

Yaroslav Markevych, who commands a drone unit in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, shows a model of a munition that can be attached to a drone.

Credit:

Anastasia Vlasova/The World

He called this a multilayered air defense system. Missile batteries try to shoot down Russian projectiles from the ground and fighter pilots try to shoot them down from the sky.

“You’re feeling adrenaline and you’re talking with your jet, like, let’s try, please, let’s do it, let’s kill these missiles, let’s intercept them, let’s save the people on the ground.”

Juice said that F-16s would significantly improve his ability to hit incoming Russian missiles.

He also said that these jets will help Ukraine’s offensive capabilities.  

“We can’t just wait for a miracle. We need to fight, we are ready to fight, we are trained, we are motivated, we need the tools.”

After Biden’s announcement in Hiroshima, it looks like Ukraine’s pilots will get the tools that they’ve been waiting for.   

The Associated Press and Volodymyr Solohub contributed to this report.

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Email AddressEmail AddressSubscribeI have read and agree to your Privacy Policy.Related ContentEthnic minorities in Russia are campaigning for the breakup of the countryThis fashion brand modernizes Ukraine’s traditional vyshyvanka shirt and dress to reflect wartimeUS Amb Bridget Brink: ‘I see no break in support’ to help Ukraine prevail against RussiaHow a Boston hospital transformed a Ukrainian child’s life

class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>This fashion brand modernizes Ukraine’s traditional vyshyvanka shirt and dress to reflect wartime

​​​​​​​Despite the ongoing attacks, Ukrainians around the world are celebrating Vyshyvanka Day on Thursday. The vyshyvanka is an elaborately embroidered shirt or dress traditionally worn in Ukraine.

The WorldMay 18, 2023 · 11:45 AM EDT

• By Daniel Ofman

Kateryna Vozianova, who owns Indposhiv, a men’s fashion brand based in Kyiv, Ukraine, said the vyshyvanka isn’t something she thought about before the full-scale Russian invasion. The company pivoted to making them after the war began.

Daniel Ofman/The World

A vyshyvanka is an elaborately embroidered shirt or dress traditionally worn in Ukraine — it’s one of the country’s best-known symbols.

Despite the ongoing Russian attacks on Ukraine, Ukrainians around the world are celebrating Vyshyvanka Day on Thursday.

Kateryna Vozianova, who owns Indposhiv, a men’s fashion brand based in Kyiv, said the vyshyvanka isn’t something she thought about before the full-scale Russian invasion. The company is known for its high-end, custom-tailored suits. 

But now, Vozianova said, it’s important for her brand to reflect this moment in history when many Ukrainians — herself included — are rediscovering their national identity. That’s why Indposhiv pivoted to producing vyshyvankas.

“Before the war, it meant nothing to me, because I didn’t feel that I needed to emphasize that I’m Ukrainian,” she said. “Right now, it has changed completely because it’s the symbol of Ukrainian struggle, everything we are going through right now, and the changes inside yourself and inside everyone.”

Vozianova said that more vyshyvanka orders are coming in because of the holiday. It takes up to six weeks to make one, so Indposhiv ran a social media campaign, she said, asking people to order in advance. She said that she is celebrating the holiday by wearing her vyshyvanka at work.

This vyshyvanka at Indposhiv, a men’s fashion brand based in Kyiv, Ukraine, is embroidered with military symbols reflecting the fact that the country is at war.

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World 

At first glance, the company’s vyshyvankas look pretty typical — embroidered patterns, colorful and comfortable. But they have veered away from traditional symbols, like flowers, trees, birds — some of the vyshyvankas depict drones, tanks or military symbols and come in army green. 

“The idea is to translate that we are going through war, this is why on this vyshyvanka you can see all this military machine, tanks, the resistance and the unity of our people,” she said.

Indposhiv, a men’s fashion brand based in Kyiv, Ukraine, produces vyshyvankas that display military symbols to show national pride.

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World 

Roxolyana Gera, who lives in the trendy Podil neighborhood of Kyiv with her family, collects vyshyvankas, including some modern ones.

“First, I started to buy books about embroidery and about vyshyvanka and about Ukrainian culture, and those books opened a galaxy of Ukrainian culture for me.”

Gera was inspired. She started going to flea markets and joined vyshyvanka collector groups on social media.

“I wanted to find vyshyvankas from each region of Ukraine, and it was my aim, and I’m almost there.”

Roxolyana Gera, of Kyiv, Ukraine, belongs to vyshyvankas collectors groups on social media. She collects old and new ones and is trying her hand at the embroidery herself.

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World 

Gera remembers growing up in western Ukraine, when her family would wear Vyshyvankas on special occasions, like Christmas and Easter.

“I was born in [the] Soviet Union, actually, and it was prohibited to celebrate all the religious holidays, so we still gathered at our granny’s house and we [would] wear Vyshyvankas as a protest and a sign, we remember our roots.”

These days, Gera said that she’s dabbling in traditional embroidery herself. 

Roxolyana Gera, who lives in the trendy Podil neighborhood of Kyiv, Ukraine, with her family, collects vyshyvankas, including some modern ones.

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World 

“I started doing my first vyshyvanka last year, during the air alarms because, while sitting in the corridor or safe place, you have nothing to do because it’s very difficult to start reading because you are a little bit stressed.”

Just sitting with a needle and thread, she said, can be therapeutic and a welcome distraction. 

Volodymyr Solohub contributed to this report.

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Email AddressEmail AddressSubscribeI have read and agree to your Privacy Policy.Related ContentUS Amb Bridget Brink: ‘I see no break in support’ to help Ukraine prevail against RussiaHow a Boston hospital transformed a Ukrainian child’s life‘Trade is trade and war is war’: Romanian farmers say helping Ukraine is hurting their bottom lineWhere does Brazil stand with the war in Ukraine?

class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>‘Trade is trade and war is war’: Romanian farmers say helping Ukraine is hurting their bottom line

A row over cheap Ukrainian grain threatens to fracture a show of solidarity between the EU and Ukraine. Romanian farmer Ionut Spiță said his profits took a hit due to a glut of cheaper Ukrainian grain and oilseeds intended for Africa and the Middle East that flooded Eastern European markets.

The WorldMay 1, 2023 · 4:45 PM EDT

• By Orla Barry

The downturn in Ionuț Spiță’s profits was driven by the glut of cheaper Ukrainian grain and oilseeds intended for Africa and the Middle East that flooded the Central and Eastern European markets.

Raul Stef/The World

Romanian farmer Ionuț Spiță, 44, is hoping for a bumper harvest for his rapeseed crop this year. 

The vast fields of blooming yellow flowers outside the small village of Tunari, 13 miles north of Bucharest, Romania, is a scene made for Instagram selfies. But a plentiful harvest does not guarantee big profits for Spiță, the general director of this 914-acre farm. 

Last year, the oil factories that usually buy up his crop of rapeseed and sunflower seed told him their stocks were already piled high. Romanian traders offered him a vastly reduced price for his wheat. 

The downturn in Spiță’s profits was driven by the glut of cheaper Ukrainian grain and oilseeds that was intended for Africa and the Middle East but flooded the Central and Eastern European markets. High fuel and fertilizer costs added to his woes. Romanian farmers say if it happens again this year, they are in danger of bankruptcy. 

Romanian farmer Ionuț Spiță, 44, is hoping for a bumper harvest for his rapeseed crop this year.  

Credit:

Raul Stef/The World

Less than a week after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, the United Nations issued an alarming warning: The war threatened an unprecedented global food crisis in countries far from Europe, the UN said. 

Ukraine is the world’s fifth-biggest grain exporter and provides up to 40% of the World Food Program’s wheat supplies. But Russian bombardment of Ukrainian ports on the Black and Azov Seas meant food exports intended for Africa and elsewhere could not be shipped out.

The European Commission came up with a series of proposals to tackle the problem, including lifting all duties on Ukrainian grain and creating so-called “solidarity lanes” in Central and Eastern Europe. The Commission proposed sending the grain and other produce via road, rail or river through nearby countries like Romania, Poland and Bulgaria. The crops could then be shipped onwards from ports like Constanța in southeastern Romania, to markets in Africa and beyond. 

Last year, the oil factories that usually buy up rapeseed and sunflower said their stocks were already piled high.

Credit:

Raul Stef/The World

Romanian agricultural consultant Cezar Gheorghe, with Agricolumn, said he knew the plan would run into trouble. Gheorghe, who advises the Romanian Ministry for Agriculture, said he warned the government that much of the grain would never make it to its ultimate destination.

“I told them frankly, that those grains will not reach African countries. The goods will remain in the European Union because EU countries desperately needed corn, for example, last year, especially because of the huge drought in the summer.”

Nobody paid any attention to his warnings, he said.

Romanian agricultural consultant Cezar Gheorghe advises the Romanian Ministry for Agriculture. He said he warned the government that much of the grain would never make it to its ultimate destination.

Credit:

Raul Stef/The World

But by early September, farmers like Spiță were forced to take notice. 

Prices plummeted as traders and factories in Europe began buying the Ukrainian alternative as it transited the region. Some Romanian farmers say they still have barns brimming full of last year’s stock. 

Spiță calls them the lucky ones. 

“They are the farmers who could afford to not sell their grain,” said Spiță, who sold all his produce but at a lower price.

Ionuț Spiță is the general director of this 370-hectare farm.

Credit:

Raul Stef/The World

Now, farmers in Central and Eastern Europe are worried about this year’s harvest. 

In early April, hundreds of angry farmers drove tractors into central Bucharest, demanding action from the Romanian government. Farmers in Bulgaria and Poland took to the streets to protest, too. 

A few days later, governments in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia imposed temporary bans and other restrictions on grain imports from Ukraine. Only Romania held back. The country’s Agriculture Minister Petre Daea said he didn’t think it was in Romania’s interest to break EU trade rules. 

Gheorghe, who advises the minister, said it was the right move and he doubts that the other Eastern European governments’ unilateral bans had only the farmers’ livelihoods in mind. 

“From my perspective, there are also political interests involved, given the fact that Poland has a general election this year and in Bulgaria it is the same,” Gheorghe said. 

But politically motivated or not, Romanian farmers are furious at their government’s inaction. 

Up until last year, Ukraine sent hardly any grain to Romania. In the past 14 months, the Romanian Farmers Club, a lobby group, estimated that as much as half of the grain designated for transit through Romania under the European program stayed in the country. 

Spiță said his country’s government has done nothing for farmers locally. 

Farmer Ionuț Spiță, 44, runs a farm in the small village of Tunari, Romania.

Credit:

Raul Stef/The World

Romania shares a 381-mile border with Ukraine and along with Poland, has been a stalwart supporter of the country since the start of the war, welcoming in some of the highest number of Ukrainian refugees per capita. 

The protest by farmers in Bucharest as well as in Poland and Bulgaria is a rare public sign of frustration at the impact the war is having on neighboring countries. 

Spiță said he sympathizes with Ukraine, but added that the government in Romania needs to protect its own population, too. 

Gheorghe, the agricultural consultant, said that the Romanian people are still fully in solidarity with Ukraine but this is business.

“As Romanians, we will never give up on our commitment to helping the Ukrainian people in terms of casualties and resources for fighting the war. But the trade is the trade and the war is the war,” Gheorghe said.

On April 28, the European Commission announced it had struck a deal with Romania and the four other Eastern European countries: The sale of wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds is to be blocked in the region and will only be allowed transit through to other EU countries or third countries. 

The commission also announced financial support of $110 million for farmers in the five nations. In return, EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said the four countries of Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary would withdraw their unilateral bans. 

Details are still being finalized and are likely to be adopted in coming days, Dombrovskis said. EU ambassadors also backed a proposed extension of Ukraine’s tariff-free access to the bloc’s single market.

Farmer Spiță said he doesn’t yet know how the changes will affect his turnover this year.

"We will have to wait until this year’s harvest," he said. 

But then, he shrugged.

"Farmers are resilient, we are used to having all sorts of problems every year from political ones to meteorological ones," he said. "We are survivors."

Raul Stef contributed to reporting.

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Email AddressEmail AddressSubscribeI have read and agree to your Privacy Policy.Related ContentWhere does Brazil stand with the war in Ukraine?Many Jews this year will celebrate Passover with a traditional reading in Ukrainian for the first time Divisions among Orthodox church communities widen amid war in UkraineRussia’s new Fan ID law seen as new form of authoritarian surveillance

class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>Divisions among Orthodox church communities widen amid war in Ukraine

This month, the Ukrainian government issued an eviction notice to clergy at Pecherska Lavra, where some Orthodox Christians may still have close ties with Russia.

The WorldMarch 29, 2023 · 3:30 PM EDT

• By Daniel Ofman

The Kyiv Pesherska Lavra, the Monastery of the Caves, in Kyiv, Ukraine, ornate cathedral, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it’s the heart of Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

Daniel Ofman/The World

Earlier this year, clergy from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine led Christmas prayer services at Lavra Cathedral within Pecherska Lavra — or Monastery of the Caves, in Kyiv, Ukraine.  

The nearly 1,000-year-old holy site is important to millions of Orthodox Christians across Ukraine, as well as Russia. 

The Orthodox Church of Ukraine is fully independent from the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. But some leaders of a branch within Ukrainian Orthodox Christianity still share historical ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.  

“When we are speaking about the Orthodox Church, for years there is a deep conflict between at least two different communities,” said Sergei Chapnin, with the Orthodox Christian studies center at Fordham University.

Amid the ongoing war with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s administration is cracking down on some Ukrainian Orthodox Christian leaders because they view some of them as allies of Russia. And this division is now playing out on the grounds of Kyiv’s Pecherska Lavra — where clergy there now face eviction. 

For many years, clergy in charge at the Lavra holy site were affiliated with Orthodox leaders in Moscow. All of the buildings, religious items and holy relics are considered to be in possession of the Ukrainian state, Chapnin explained. 

The Kyiv Pesherska Lavra, the Monastery of the Caves, in Kyiv, Ukraine, ornate cathedral, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it’s the heart of Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

In December of 2022, the Ukrainian government decided to take back control of Lavra. President Zelenskiy has said that Ukraine needs to become “spiritually independent” from Moscow.

“When Zelenskiy won the presidential elections in Ukraine, he didn’t pay attention to the religious policy of the Ukrainian government at all. Until the war started,” Chapnin said.  

Many Russian Orthodox church leaders have publicly supported Putin’s war effort.

“So Putin weaponized the religious factor and Zelenskiy has to reply,” Chapnin said. 

Late last year, Ukrainian security services started raiding churches where clergy were suspected of being loyal to the Kremlin.

Zelenskiy’s most recent response is the eviction notice.

Earlier this month, several hundred priests, monks, students and employees of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were given a deadline of March 29 to leave the Lavra complex.

While most members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church condemn the Russian invasion, some leaders have indeed expressed support for Moscow, according to Kristina Stoeckl, a religion and politics professor at LUISS University in Rome.

“Some representatives of that church are openly pro-Russian, and several others are maybe less openly pro-Russian, but they are suspected to support the Russian position in the war,” Stoeckl said. 

She said the Ukrainian government is trying to nudge people of faith toward the independent branch of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

The Kyiv Pesherska Lavra, the Monastery of the Caves, in Kyiv, Ukraine, ornate cathedral, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it’s the heart of Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

But this eviction order could also end up alienating some patriotic Ukrainians who happen to be connected with the other branch of the Church.  

“I actually think it’s possible that there’s a coexistence of the two churches, even on those very same premises. Because there already is a dialogue forum and many of them know each other and also have friendly relationships with each other,” she said. 

Some monks at the Kyiv Pecherska Lavra have said they’re staying put on the holy site, and will refuse to leave before Wednesday’s deadline. 

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class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>A family of artists expresses how the war in Ukraine impacts their creative work

Sergei Isupov lives in western Massachusetts, but the rest of his family still lives in Ukraine. They're all artists, and they use their unique forms of art to express how the current war affects each of them.

The WorldMarch 21, 2023 · 2:30 PM EDT

• By Carol Hills

Artwork by Nelli Isupova, who lives in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Courtesy of Nelli Isupova

The Isupovs are a family of artists who are spread across Ukraine and the United States.

Each one’s art varies, and the war in Ukraine has also influenced them differently in the way they bring creativity to their work.

Sergei Isupov, who lives in western Massachusetts, holds up one of his pieces of artwork.

Credit:

Courtesy of John Polak

Sergei Isupov, 59, lives in western Massachusetts, and makes his living as a ceramic artist, combining painting and sculpture — essentially mixing 2D with 3D. His sculptures are of humans, animals and sometimes both, with incongruous elements placed together.

Sergei, who’s been in the US for more than 30 years, said that his life here has brought him incredible artistic freedom and an established, reliable world of galleries, dealers and museums for his work.

He explained that, “for creativity, conflict definitely helps. We even have this idiom, ‘If you're not sick, [there's] nothing to write about.’” That’s something that the war back home — where the rest of his family still lives — has now taken care of."

Sergei’s parents, Nelli and Vladimir, met in art school in the port city of Odesa in the late 1950s, during the Soviet period. They later settled in Kyiv to raise their two sons, Sergei and Ilya. And they basically insisted that their sons become artists, too.

Sergei’s father, Vladimir, was a well-known painter in Ukraine. In recent years, he lived on the 20th floor of a high-rise in Bucha, outside of Kyiv.

Shortly after the war started, the elevator in his building stopped working, so he didn't leave his home for three months.

After the Russian bombing and massacre in Bucha last year, he stopped making art, stopped taking calls from his family and withdrew. He died last month. And Sergei never had a chance to properly say goodbye.

Sergei’s mother, Nelli, and brother, Ilya, still live in Kyiv. And Sergei talks to them all the time.

“Sometimes [when] I talk to my mom, I hear sirens in the back,” Sergei said.

He said he’s been grappling with the thought of what he would do if something happened to his family and how he would react. His mother has refused his repeated suggestion to move to the US.

Like Sergei, Nelli Isupova is a ceramic artist, but her work is less surreal than his, and also more of a celebration of life. She makes a lot of ceramic sculptures of animals, birds, nature and even teapots with creatures on the handle.

“It's really important to be creative,” Nelli said through her son on a phone call. She explained that she's more active as an artist now than she was before the war. And she feels like it's her obligation to bring art to the public, that it's a form of peace.

“If everybody experienced life with art and colors, nobody would start a war.”

Nelli Isupova, Ukrainian artist

“If everybody experienced life with art and colors, nobody would start a war,” she said.

Sergei’s brother, Ilya, 52, is a painter like their late-father. His work is not quite as optimistic as their mother’s. He seems more exhausted and discouraged. He has four children and they've all been dispersed, like many other Ukrainian families. He said he feels like he’s living in a bad movie and he can't imagine painting flowers at this time.

One of his paintings shows a small blue car moving through a war zone. Someone is driving, while two terrified teenagers look out the window as warplanes fly overhead. That someone is actually Ilya, himself, with his daughters, and that dangerous ride actually really happened.

A painting by Ilya Isupov, who lives in Kyiv, of him driving his two teenage daughters through a war zone in Ukraine.

Credit:

Courtesy of Ilya Isupov

Shortly after the drive, Ilya moved his family out of Ukraine. He’s had to stay back, though, because Ukrainian men under the age of 65 are required to stay in the country.

Meanwhile, Sergei, who left Ukraine decades ago and didn't really look back since, now says he thinks about it all the time. And he said he now has that little bit of sickness that an artist needs to go deeper with this work.

Related: Art historians debate identity of iconic Mariupol painter

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class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>Faith and family sustain this Kyiv family in wartime Ukraine

Sasha Shulyahina was 38-weeks pregnant when Russian forces invaded Ukraine in late February 2022. Motherhood and her faith continue to sustain her through a year of war.

The WorldMarch 17, 2023 · 4:45 PM EDT

• By Carolyn BeelerPatti Daniels

Maia Mikhaluk on the left, her daughter, Sasha Shulyahina, on the right.

Patti Daniels/The World

On Thursday, Sasha Shulyahina, who lives in Kyiv, Ukraine, celebrated her daughter Briana’s first birthday with family and friends at the church that her parents lead.

Briana was born a year ago as Russian forces pressed in on the city. Now, she’s babbling and making raspberry noises in a playpen at her parents’ church.

Shulyahina lights up when she talks about Briana: “She's just the cutest baby. She has these huge brown eyes. And she showed her personality from the first hours of us being with her.”

Last March, when Shulyahina started going into labor at 2 a.m., an ambulance arrived amid an air raid and loud explosions. Briana was born on March 16, 2022.

For Shulyahina and the whole family, Briana and the church have been a source of joy and solace through a year of war.

Shulyahina said that so far, her baby daughter seems unaffected by the war — she doesn’t notice when the lights go out or explosions are audible.

“I'm glad that she's not aware of this yet,” she said. “And I hope that we're able to not project our stress onto her, that we're able to have a calm and peaceful environment for her.”

Maia Mikhaluk and Nick Mikhaluk, Shulyahina’s parents, stayed in Kyiv when the Russian invasion began, both to remain with their then-pregnant daughter, but also to continue leading the church that they founded, International Ministry Partnerships.

Just a few days after Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, they livestreamed a worship service from the Mikhaluk’s living room. Shulyahina played the keyboard and Nick Mikhaluk played guitar.

The next Sunday, the congregation met in person, even though air raid sirens were wailing.

“I think that experience gave people some special sense of God's protection,” Maia Mikhaluk said. “At the times when you reach the depths of your fear, and you look up to God, there’s this peace that surpasses understanding.”

During war, they say, the church is a place to inspire hope. But Nick Mikhaluk, who preaches on many Sundays, said it’s also important to remind his congregants that theirs is a God who hands down judgment.

“God is [a] God of love, but he’s also a righteous judge,” he said. “For us it’s hard to comprehend sometimes, like love and fairness. But God is like that. So, we need to preach both.”

Although living through a war isn’t what anyone in the family would wish for themselves, they say their church and their faith are stronger because of it.

“This time really helps us really rethink our faith, really rethink what we value,” Shulyahina said.

Click on the audio player above to hear more about how the family and the church have survived a year of war.

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class=”MuiTypography-root-134 MuiTypography-h1-139″>'We have to keep on living’: The search for love in wartime Ukraine

The stress of war is a litmus test for relationships.

The WorldMarch 14, 2023 · 4:30 PM EDT

• By Carolyn Beeler

Alina Berezova and Stanislav Linevych, now a couple, talk about how they met on a dating app and moved in togethera after dating for six weeks amid war in Ukraine.

Anastasia Vlasova/The World

Ukrainians Alina Berezova and Stanislav Linevych were dating for just six weeks when they decided to move in together. 

Linevych, 31, who works for a humanitarian organization in Kyiv, said he joined Tinder as an act of defiance against the Russians. Berezova, 25, who works in IT, said Linevych’s chubby beagle mix Archie drew her to his profile. 

“We need to continue to live, we need to love,” Linevych said, “because only good things can defeat that darkness.” 

More than a year since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in Ukraine, millions of people are continuing to live their lives — including the search for love — even as power outages, missile strikes and curfews complicate daily life. 

Alina Berezova and Stanislav Linevych talk about their relationship. 

Credit:

Anastasia Vlasova/The World

For many couples, the war has accelerated relationships, Kyiv psychologist Tetiana Lovchynska said.

“People are very social creatures,” she said. “And during war, we lose previous connections and previous lifestyles, and we need to rebuild.” 

Lovchynska has seen hundreds of individuals and couples in therapy over the last year and has noticed a trend of moving in together and reaching other relationship milestones more quickly. 

“People understand that we don’t have tomorrow,” she said. “We have now.”  

On their first date, the couple lost track of time and had to race home to meet the 11 p.m. curfew. Six weeks into their relationship, Kyiv and its infrastructure was being targeted by Russian missiles and power cuts were frequent. 

“I didn't have water in my flat, didn’t have light. And it was scary for me,” Berezova said, sitting next to Linevych on the couch in their apartment in a Kyiv suburb. 

“I was alone. And when I was with Stanislav, it was more comfortable and more calm for me.”

Alina Berezova and Stanislav Linevych and their dog in Kyiv. 

Credit:

Anastasia Vlasova/The World

The couple teased each other as they recounted the story of their relationship.

“Alina told me that she feels safer when we’re together,” Linevych said. “And for me, it was very important to support her, and to be near her in stressful moments.”

Lovchynska has found that the stress of war is a litmus test for relationships. 

“Some couples, they are getting even stronger,” she said, as they look past their problems and see just how important their relationship is in a time of conflict. 

Alina Berezova and Stanislav Linevych moved in together after dating for six weeks.

Credit:

Anastasia Vlasova/The World

For others, the stress of war exacerbates existing divisions. 

“All these things that were deeply inside, they come to the surface,” she said. 

Lovchynska said the number of weddings went up 20% in Ukraine last year, but the number of divorces increased, too. A primary stressor is distance. Millions of Ukrainians left the country at the beginning of the Russian invasion, mostly women and children leaving husbands and fathers behind. 

“Married couples, families, they are separated,” she said. “And this distance plays a huge role.” 

Add the trauma and stress of living through war or displacement, and some couples don’t have the emotional energy to tend to their relationships, Lovchynska said. 

Yevheh Martynenko, a university student studying history in Kyiv, saw his relationship of two years end last spring, after his girlfriend moved away from Kyiv to be with family.

“This kind of distance, it was very bad for our relationship,” Martynenko said. 

Yevheh Martynenko, a university student studying history in Kyiv, saw his relationship of two years end last spring, after his girlfriend moved away.

Credit:

Patti Daniels/The World

In normal times, Martynenko said that after the breakup he could have met people to date at work, school, or clubs. 

But amid war, the restaurant where he worked closed, school went online for safety, and many clubs shut down because of the curfew.

“For me, it became more difficult to meet new people,” he said. 

Last summer, he downloaded Tinder and another dating app called Badoo, but he said he hasn’t had much luck.

“It’s very difficult for me to build a new relationship when you meet a person online,” he said. 

Still, wedding bells continue to ring out across the country. 

Right now, marriage is limited to heterosexual couples in Ukraine, but the war has added urgency to a push for change. A petition for same-sex marriage to be legalized landed on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s desk this summer, and he proposed civil unions as an alternative. 

Last week, a Ukrainian lawmaker submitted a draft law on the legalization of same-sex partnerships to the country’s parliament. 

In Kyiv, an officiant at a municipal wedding chapel told The World that a growing number of brides and grooms come straight from the front lines, wearing their camouflage uniforms and combat boots as they exchange vows.  

Anna Panasenko and Max Protsyk on their wedding day in Kyiv.

Credit:

Patti Daniels/The World

Anna Panasenko and Max Protsyk wore a more traditional gown and suit when they wed there in late February. 

The couple, both in their 20s, met two years ago at a party held illegally during COVID-19 lockdowns and got engaged six months ago.  

Speaking through an interpreter in the lobby of the Kyiv wedding chapel, they said at first they thought of postponing their wedding, hoping the war would end soon. But as it dragged on, they decided to go for it.  

“Especially because the war is happening, we don’t want to postpone our life,” they said, finishing each other’s sentences as they waited their turn to walk down the aisle. 

“We have to keep on living, and amongst all this evil that is happening, we want some good in our lives.”

Anna Panasenko and Max Protsyk on their wedding day in Kyiv.

Credit:

Patti Daniels/The World

Friends at the ceremony said the couple supporting each other through the stress of war brought them closer together.  

Panasenko works in a beauty salon, and Protsyk works in construction. He said he plans to help rebuild the country as they build a new life together.  

When it was their turn to enter the chapel, the couple exchanged vows to applause and cheers from assembled friends and family, then raised their glasses in a celebratory toast. 

Irina Protsyk, the groom’s mother, had come to the wedding from her home in a village outside of Zaporizhzhia, where the groom grew up. It’s now about 10 miles from the war’s front lines. 

“It’s a big contrast,” she said. Soldiers are constantly passing through her village, helicopters flying overhead, and explosions sounding in the distance.  

In Kyiv, the couple is all smiles, bubbling over like the champagne in their flutes. The war is on their minds, even on their wedding day, the groom said, but this moment is about celebrating a new beginning.

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class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>Athletes in Ukraine strive for Olympic gold 

As Ukrainian athletes train for the Summer Olympics next year in Paris, it is unclear whether or not Russian athletes will be allowed to compete in the Games.

The WorldMarch 9, 2023 · 3:15 PM EST

• By Daniel Ofman

Ukrainian fencers train at the National University of Physical Education in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Daniel Ofman/The World

Ukrainian fencer Darya Varfolomeyeva, 23, started fencing when she was just 11 years old. 

“My mom told me if you want to do trainings, you have to do all your homework and only after that you can go to do your training. So, I did my homework between lessons, just to have more time, every day was the same,” she said.

Today, she trains with Ukraine’s national fencing team at a gym at the National University of Physical Education. Varfolomeyeva said she hopes to qualify for the Summer Olympics in Paris next year. 

Darya Varfolomeyeva, 23, started fencing when she was just 11 years old.

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

But the past year has not been easy for Varfolomeyeva, who hails from Uzhhorod, Ukraine. A few days after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Varfolomeyeva’s mother asked her to take her sister and go abroad. They reached Prague, where they could stay with a relative.

Varfolomeyeva soon started training for a competition in Budapest, where she was welcomed by coaches and fellow fencers who bought her new fencing equipment. 

But as the war continues, so does the stress. And on the other side of the conflict are the Russian athletes: It is uncertain whether or not Russian athletes will also be allowed to compete next year in the Olympics. Ukraine's president has said that Russia should not be allowed to use the Games to “promote aggression.”

Fencer Darya Varfolomeyeva has her eyes set on next summer's Olympic Games in Paris. 

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

Russia is currently under heavy international sanctions and Russian athletes have already been banned from some international sporting events like Wimbledon in 2022. 

But Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, insists that these decisions should not get politicized. 

“Governments should not decide on political grounds who is participating in which sport event,” he said, adding that qualifications must be on merit — not on politics. 

In the past, when Russia had been penalized, its athletes have been allowed under certain circumstances to compete in the Olympics under a neutral banner — just not the Russian flag.

Ukraine's Parviz Nasibov, top, and Egypt's Mohamed Ibrahim Elsayed compete during the men's 67kg Greco-Roman wrestling semifinal match at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Aug. 3, 2021, in Chiba, Japan. 

Credit:

Aaron Favila/AP

On the outskirts of Kyiv, at an Olympic training facility, Greco-Roman wrestler Parviz Nasibov is also getting ready for the 2024 Summer Games.

He won a silver medal at the last Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Silver medalist, Ukraine's Parviz Nasibov celebrates on the podium during the medal ceremony for the men's 67kg Greco-Roman wrestling at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Aug. 4, 2021, in Chiba, Japan. 

Credit:

Aaron Favila/AP

Despite all the training, he said that right now, sports do not hold the same importance to him as they used to.

Instead, he finds himself thinking about friends who have died in the war, or those still serving in Ukraine’s armed forces.

“Of course it’s difficult,” he said, adding that his family fled to Germany and he has not seen them for three months. 

But Nasibov said his goal remains the same —  to win a gold medal in Paris.

And if Russian athletes are allowed to compete, he said, “we’ll just have to beat them.”

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class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>'We lost everything': African students who fled war in Ukraine continue to struggle

By and large, many African countries have stayed on the sidelines of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. As major importers of wheat and fertilizers from the two warring nations, they are reluctant to jeopardize those vital supplies by taking sides, observed Olayinka Ajala, a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University in Britain.

The WorldMarch 6, 2023 · 3:15 PM EST

• By Halima Gikandi

Rescue workers clear the rubble from an apartment building that was destroyed in a Russian rocket attack at a residential neighbourhood in the southeastern city of Dnipro, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 16, 2023. 

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Last year, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Zimbabwean student Korrine Sky was enrolled in medical school in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

When Sky and her husband tried to flee at the Ukraine-Romania border, Sky said they were forced to abandon their vehicle as they waited in a long queue of cars, and were then directed to stand in the frigid cold in a separate line full of mostly Black and other diverse immigrants for hours — until the last Ukrainians crossed the border.

“We were last. They were going to make sure that the Ukrainian people were safe, and then, they would allow us after days,” she recalled. “It was so heartbreaking.”

By and large, many African countries have stayed on the sidelines of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. As major importers of wheat and fertilizers from the two warring nations, they are reluctant to jeopardize those vital supplies by taking sides, observed Olayinka Ajala, a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University in Britain.

He added that the plight of African students in Ukraine may have bolstered the positions that African countries have taken toward the conflict in Ukraine. 

Refugees from Ukraine arrive at the railway station in Przemysl, Poland, Feb. 27, 2022. Nearly a year has passed since the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion sent millions of people fleeing across Ukraine's border into neighboring Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova and Romania.

Credit:

Czarek Sokolowski/File/AP

Sky, 27, had seen and heard about videos circulating on social media showing African students being prevented — sometimes, physically — from fleeing the country, but was initially reluctant to attribute these actions to racism until her own harrowing experience. 

A year later, Sky said she and other African students who fled Ukraine are struggling to survive, while Ukrainians have been welcomed and supported by other countries.

“We lost everything and nobody cares,” she said. 

“Yet, when we see our counterparts, the people we left with, our neighbors, they have been accommodated and the world has opened their arms to them.”

Africa on the global stage

Last year, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced parts of eastern Ukraine were now independent states — one of the most memorable rebukes came from then Kenyan Ambassador to the United Nations Martin Kimani.

“The territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine stands breached,” he said in a speech at the United Nations Security Council on which Kenya had a nonpermanent seat. 

Kimani went on to compare the insecurity in these border areas to Africa’s own troubles with border disputes. 

“Today, across the border of every single African country live our countrymen with whom we share deep historical, cultural and linguistic bonds,” he said.

“At independence, had we chosen to pursue states on the basis of ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity, we would still be waging bloody wars these many decades later,” he continued. 

Kenya's Ambassador to the United Nations Martin Kimani addressed a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on Feb. 25, 2022, at UN headquarters. Although Kenya and Ghana criticized Russia's actions, amid a worldwide chorus of condemnation against Russia's war on Ukraine, Africa has remained mostly quiet — a reminder of the Kremlin's considerable influence over the continent. 

Credit:

John Minchillo/File/AP

The speech received a lot of attention globally.

“It shows that Africa is more and more significant at the international stage when we look at the reception from all around the world,” Ajala said.

Since then, there’s been a lot of attention on how African countries have reacted to the conflict — especially those who have opted to stay silent.

“The initial reaction of African countries is not to get embroiled in another long conflict,” Ajala observed.

“Some people were not happy with that, because some people felt that if you are not aligning with the West, that means you are actually in support of the conflict.”

Ajala cautioned, however, against lumping 54 African countries together. Each one has different foreign policy objectives that should be respected, he said.

For example, some countries – like Namibia – have the policy of nonalignment enshrined in its constitution.

Others have growing trade, economic, and military ties with Russia that they might be hesitant to jeopardize.

“Many African countries depend on Russia for fertilizers, for wheat, for oil. For different things like that. So, many of them strategically found it very difficult to just turn their backs on their ally.”

South Africa, which has faced pressure to condemn Russia over the war, has also criticized the role that NATO expansion had played in the lead-up to the conflict.

Ajala added that at the end of the day, many African countries see the war in Ukraine as a European conflict that needs to be resolved internally.

‘A bigger stand’

Sky said she still wants to fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor, but that most African students who fled Ukraine haven’t been able to continue their education. 

Recently, she launched a campaign calling for universities around the world to grant African students who fled the war the same opportunities to continue their education as their Ukrainian counterparts.

Still, despite the racism she experienced in Ukraine, and the subsequent struggles after — Sky said that African countries like hers could do more.

“I think that the African countries should have definitely made a bigger stand. Despite everything that happened, war is wrong and a lot of innocent people have died.” 

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class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>Finding home in California after fleeing war in Ukraine

Amid war and displacement, Ukrainian artist Vira Ustyanska and her daughter find home in San Diego, California, as they wait for the war to end.

The WorldFebruary 23, 2023 · 3:00 PM EST

• By Marco WermanThe World staff

Vira Ustyanska, a 34-year-old artist, fled her home in Zaporizhia, Ukraine, soon after the war started. She now lives in San Diego, California, with a host family waiting for the war to end.

Marco Werman/The World

Over the past year of war in Ukraine, some 8 million people have been internally displaced. Another 8 million left the country and settled in European countries.

Close to 100,000 Ukrainians have moved to the United States as refugees, many of them through the Uniting for Ukraine visa program that offers a two-year residency window.

Vira Ustyanska, 34, is a recipient of one of these visas. She now lives in San Diego, California, nearly 7,000 miles from her hometown of Zaporizhzhia.

Ustayanksa is an artist whose paintings have appeared in museums and private collections around the world. For the past 10 years, she said, she did not follow the news. She just wanted to make art. And she did not believe that war in Ukraine could become reality.

On Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ustyanska, her daughter Vasy, and her husband Sergei, went down into a bomb shelter they had hurriedly built with neighbors.

Five days later, she noticed that people began to leave the shelter and the city. Ustyanska made the hard decision that she and 8-year-old Vasy needed to leave Ukraine.  

“There was no discussion. My husband had to stay and fight,” she said.

Ustyanska said she took all the belongings needed for the journey and packed them in a small suitcase. It took about 30 minutes to get ready and then — she and her daughter left. 

After staying in several shelters, living with friends and navigating a complicated visa process, they are now living in a Spanish colonial home in San Diego, with host Connie Terwilliger.

Ukrainian artist Vira Ustyanska with her host Connie Terwilliger in San Diego. At the garage-turned-art studio at Terwilliger's house, Ustyanska paints large canvases of sunflowers, her favorite subject.

Credit:

Marco Werman/The World

Right after the war started, Terwilliger received an email from AirBnb, an app with which she rents out her property.

The email asked whether she would like to donate a room to a Ukrainian refugee.

“I thought, well sure, I've a nice big house and a couple of bedrooms and bathrooms that weren't being used, so I said 'yes,'" Terwilliger said.

Terwilliger is hosting them rent-free for as long as they need.

“They're my new family, actually. I never had any kids and now I have a granddaughter. It's wonderful. I'm absolutely enjoying the experience,” she said.

Every day, Ustyanska speaks with her husband, who is repairing airplanes in Zaporizhzhia, while she waits in San Diego for the war to end.

Vasy is learning English quickly and has made friends in school.

Vira Ustyanska's daughter Vasy plays with a cat in what is now her home in San Diego, California. Mother and daughter fled their town of Zaporizhzhia in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine.

Credit:

Marco Werman/The World

In the garage-turned-art studio at Terwilliger's house, Ustyanska paints large canvases of sunflowers — her favorite subject.

The last six months before the war started, she painted very dark, depressive paintings with sunflowers. In San Diego, they are bright yellow against blue skies to keep out the darkness, she said. 

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class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>Ukraine’s year of war, displacement and no end in sight

The ongoing war in Ukraine has affected millions of people. The World’s correspondents Daniel Ofman, Durrie Bouscaren and Shirin Jaafari reflect on some of the key moments of the conflict.

The WorldFebruary 22, 2023 · 8:00 AM EST

• By María Elena Romero

Yevdokia, 65, hugs her son Alexander in front of their house, which was heavily damaged by Russia attack, in the retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, on Sept. 14, 2022.

Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

The ongoing war in Ukraine that began a year ago has killed thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes. Entire cities have been reduced to rubble.

The intense confrontations have also fueled fears of an open conflict between Russia and NATO. 

President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine from the north, east and south in what he called a “special military operation” to achieve the “demilitarization” and “denazification” of the country and protect ethnic Russians. 

Moscow also wanted to prevent Kyiv’s NATO membership and to keep it in Russia’s “sphere of influence.” Ukraine and the West say it's an illegal act of aggression against a country with a democratically elected government and a Jewish president whose relatives were killed in the Holocaust.

Russian troops quickly reached Kyiv's outskirts, but their attempts to capture the capital and other cities in the northeast met stiff resistance. 

In the video above, The World’s correspondents Daniel Ofman, Durrie Bouscaren and Shirin Jaafari reflect on some of the key moments they have covered over the past year.

The magnitude of the conflict, with no end in sight, has striking numbers. 

Ahead of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, over 150,000 Russian troops had been amassing around Ukraine in Belarus and Russia.

At the start of the invasion, Ukraine had an active 196,600 military personnel. New conscripts and civilian volunteers bolstered the number of personnel to anywhere between 500,000 and 700,000.

Russia’s planned recruitment of about 300,000 new troops last fall proved successful, expanding their military numbers to well over a million people. 

Military casualties for both nations are said to have reached the tens of thousands. 

A train with refugees fleeing Ukraine crosses the border in Medyka, Poland, on March 7, 2022. The United Nations said that more than 3.6 million people fled Ukraine in the first month of the war in what is the biggest movement of people in Europe since World War II. 

Credit:

Visar Kryeziu/AP

Civilians in both countries have lost their lives, over 7,000 in Ukraine and more than 5,000 in Russia. Explosive weapons have caused  94% of those casualties.

Approximately 14 million Ukrainians are either internally or externally displaced due to the war, with nearly 8 million Ukrainians living in European countries as refugees. 

Meanwhile, 700,000 Russians fled the country since the initial mobilization was declared, with many fleeing to neighboring countries when a draft was announced.

AP contributed to this report. With research from Fabian Garcia. Video produced by Maria Elena Romero and Andrew Blum.

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Email AddressEmail AddressSubscribeI have read and agree to your Privacy Policy.Related Content‘I did it with my own two hands’: Ukrainians rebuild even as war continuesUkrainians reflect on life a year into war A year of war in Ukraine: A timeline of key moments A yearlong fight for arts and culture in Ukraine as war rages on

class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>A yearlong fight for arts and culture in Ukraine as war rages on

When Russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine began on Feb. 24, 2022, the pursuits of many of Ukraine's leading artists and cultural institutions came to a halt. The World takes a look back at the myriad ways in which war impacted artistic and cultural expression in Ukraine, and how advocates continue to work tirelessly to keep making art against all odds.

The WorldFebruary 21, 2023 · 4:00 PM EST

• By The World staff

Ilona Kravchenko and Jan Vana perform in “Giselle” with the Ukrainian Classical Ballet in Bucharest, Romania.

Elena Graham/The World

Ukrainian musicians Taras Shevchenko and Kateryna Pavlenko from the band Go-A were thinking about starting a new folk electronica project back in February of 2022. But on Feb. 24, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion in Ukraine, the pursuits of many of Ukraine's leading artists and cultural institutions came to a halt.

Since the war began, artists and cultural workers swiftly shifted their focus to contributing to war efforts, while also working to maintain and promote Ukraine's unique artistic and cultural heritage. 

The World takes a look back at the myriad ways in which war impacted artistic and cultural expression in Ukraine, and how advocates worked tirelessly to keep making art against all odds.

Ukrainian musicians Taras Shevchenko and Kateryna Pavlenko founded Go-A, a folk-electronica band. 

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

A race to save cultural heritage 

In early March, as Moscow escalated its bombardment of civilian areas, museums and churches in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv were targeted. Residents of Lviv raced to ensure their city did not suffer the same fate. For a city synonymous with music and the arts, the most common sound in the city became hammering and drilling.

Workers construct metal scaffolding around the statue of Greek goddess Amphitrite in the medieval Market Square in Lviv, Ukraine.

Credit:

Andrew Connelly/The World

Artists on the front lines 

Ukraine's military made it mandatory for all men to stay in Ukraine to serve in the war. But when the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra mobilized to go on tour as part of a cultural diplomacy mission, the Defense Ministry granted special permission for its male members to leave the country.

The Kyiv Symphony Orchestra rehearses at the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, Poland, the day before the premiere performance of the "Voice of Ukraine" tour that took them to nine cities across Poland and Germany, April 20, 2022.

Credit:

Emily Johnson/The World

Other musicians, like Taras Topolia, the lead singer of the Antytila band, immediately joined Ukraine's military and served on the front lines. At the same time, Topolia continued to advocate for Ukraine through his music.

Some of the Ukrainian band Antytila's members have been serving on the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Credit:

Antytila on Twitter 

As intense fighting in Ukraine tore apart entire villages, Ukraine's underground rave scene got behind Repair Together, a volunteer group that hosted "clean-up raves," a mix of traditional clean-up efforts with dance parties, to relieve stress and connect with others.

Repair Together hosts a clean-up rave in Ivanivka, Chernihivska oblast.

Credit:

Repair Together/YouTube

Translating war, protecting literature  

The war in Ukraine sparked a new wave of interest in Ukrainian history, culture and writing. Ukrainian literary translators have been working on overdrive as the war drove new demand for Ukrainian publications. US-based writer Dralyuk has been translating poetry and literature from both Russian and Ukrainian into English.

A visitor reads a book at a book fair during a Publishers Forum in Lviv, Ukraine, Sept. 19, 2018. Since the war in Ukraine began nearly six months ago, the demand for Ukrainian translations and literature has increased.

Credit:

Mykola Tys/AP

Finding home on international stages

When war broke out in Ukraine, the Shchedryk Children’s Choir from Kyiv was poised to celebrate its 50th anniversary with a world tour. Conductor Saul Zaks went on a mission to make sure the world continued to experience the choir’s "magical" sounds. By December 2022, the choir headed to Carnegie Hall to celebrate a Christmas sensation known as “Carol of the Bells.”

Children’s choir Shchedryk rehearses on Thursday evening at St. Paul’s in New York City. 

Credit:

Emily Johnson/The World

Ukrainian ballet dancers displaced by the fighting found a home on international stages. The Ukrainian Classical Ballet went on a charity tour in Italy and Romania in May, with the company in Bucharest, for a performance of “Giselle.” 

The Ukrainian Classical Ballet company holds up the Ukrainian flag onstage during curtain call while the Ukrainian national anthem plays as part of a performance in Bucharest, Ukraine.

Credit:

Elena Graham/The World

And despite six months of grueling war with Russia, several acts from Ukraine were represented at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival, the world’s largest arts festival, held yearly in Scotland. For the performers, it was a bittersweet experience.

Some Ukrainian students were evacuated from Ukraine thanks to a Czech circus company, Cirk La Putyka. “Boom," a performance they took to Edinburgh, was rewritten to reflect the students’ perspectives of war and displacement.

Credit:

Andrew Connelly/The World

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Email AddressEmail AddressSubscribeI have read and agree to your Privacy Policy.Related Content‘I did it with my own two hands’: Ukrainians rebuild even as war continuesUkrainians reflect on life a year into war A year of war in Ukraine: A timeline of key moments Ukraine’s year of war, displacement and no end in sight

class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>‘Family is everything’: A train ride to a long-awaited reunion in Ukraine

The Talyzenkov family heads back to Ukraine by train for a weeklong visit. The two children are eager to reunite with their father, who is currently serving in the army.

The WorldFebruary 17, 2023 · 2:30 PM EST

• By Daniel Ofman

The Talyzenkov family, currently living in London, England, heads back to Ukraine for a weeklong visit.

Daniel Ofman/The World

Nearly one year ago, people across Ukraine woke up at the crack of dawn to the news that the Russian military was invading their country.

Since then, about 8 million Ukrainians have fled their homeland. Many have resettled indefinitely, even with loved ones still back home.

The Talyzenkov family has been living in London for most of the last year.

Early this week, Olena Talyzenkova and her two children, 9-year-old Matviy, and 14-year-old Arina, rode the train back to Ukraine together from Poland, headed for a long-awaited reunion.

“We are going to our native city [Rvine] to see my husband. We didn't see him for five or six weeks. Now, he is in the army, to serve his country, to protect us,” Talyzenkova explained.

Her husband, Serhiy Talyzenkov, a computer programmer with no prior military experience, is now serving in the Ukrainian army.

“They have just one goal, to protect their family and their land,” Talyzenkova said. “Maybe they are not the best of the best, because they never served in the army, but they know they are in the right place.”

Arina and Matviy said they were both very eager to spend time with their father again.

“I think first, when I see him, I will not tell [anything]. I will just hug him and that's all,” Arina said, adding that she anticipates a lot of tears. She said she misses spending time with her father, playing board games, riding bikes and playing badminton in the summers.

Matviy said he feels the same. 

“I just want to hug him and go to the forest with him to play different games and just have a good time with him, because I miss him very much,” he said.

Talyzenkova said that living in London has been a positive experience, with friendly neighbors and supportive schools. Talyzenkova has been allowed to work and the children have received laptops and school uniforms to ease the transition.

But the separation from her husband has been challenging.

“My mom told me the family is the most important thing, so now, I even more appreciate the family. I have to keep the family."

Olena Talyzenkova, Ukrainian mother of two, currently living in London, England. 

“My mom told me the family is the most important thing, so now, I even more appreciate the family. I have to keep the family. And it's really hard to be alone, because you have to make too many decisions on your own. We discuss everything through messenger or by phone — what we can discuss — but it's not the same,” she explained. 

Arina has also felt the pang of separation from her Ukrainian classmates and friends. She said they keep in touch mostly through group texts, where they share jokes, play online games together and discuss politics. 

“We often discuss political things. We read news together and discuss war … it's always difficult to talk about it, but it's nice that I have someone my age and I can discuss it with them. We support each other. It's a nice thing,” she said.

Matviy said he has made some new friends in London, but he’s most enamored by his host family’s dogs, Birdy and Lola. He especially enjoys going on walks with them. 

As they got closer to their final destination, Arina and Matviy said they both share the same hope: 

“I hope this war will finish real soon,” Arina said. “I really hope the war will finish and everyone [can] just come back home to their houses, to their fathers, and spend a lovely time together.” 

Matviy added that his wish is for everyone to one day return to their birthplace and reunite with their families.

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Email AddressEmail AddressSubscribeI have read and agree to your Privacy Policy.Related ContentCrimean Tatars long to return to a liberated CrimeaVolunteers in Ukraine organize to ‘fill in gaps’ in ongoing warAmerica’s top priority is to help Ukraine ‘defend itself’ as a sovereign nation, Blinken adviser saysBelgium faces pressure to support sanctions on Russian diamonds

class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>Volunteers in Ukraine organize to ‘fill in gaps’ in ongoing war

Grassroots organizations have popped up all around Kyiv to send support — both humanitarian and military assistance — to the frontlines.

The WorldFebruary 10, 2023 · 1:15 PM EST

• By Daniel Ofman

Good Bread Bakery is baking and sending thousands of loaves of bread to the frontlines. 

Daniel Ofman/The World

Professional dancer Anton Nesterko’s life changed from dancer to volunteer when Russia launched its full-scale invasion into Ukraine on Feb. 24. 

He and his dance partner used to represent Ukraine in international dance competitions, becoming one of the top 10 best dance couples in the world. 

“Now, because of the war, we [changed] our priority and a little bit, like, stopped our career, but [we] do everything that is possible to finish war as fast as possible and get back on the dance floor,” he told The World.

Since the start of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s leaders have not been shy about asking for international help. Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelinskiy’s United24 campaign has pulled in more than $275 million worth of assistance. That’s on top of the tens of billions in military aid that Ukraine has received from other countries.

But that’s at the government level. Ukrainians also understand the critical need for volunteer support from regular people like Nesterko.

His volunteer organization, PoParam, is based at a dance studio in Kyiv. Every day, they pack medicine, first-aid kits, warm clothing and other essentials into boxes and send them off to soldiers on the front lines.

“Eleven boxes — and everything is going to send to our best warriors in the world,” he said.

Anton Nesterko is acompetitive ballroom dancer and the founder of PoParam, a volunteer organization based in this dance studio in Kyiv, that sends gear like clothing, socks and sleeping bags to Ukrainian soldiers on the fronts lines.

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

Grassroots organizations like Nesterko’s have popped up all around Kyiv.

Some are small, with just a few people, while others have grown into big organizations with hundreds of volunteers. 

Serhiy Prytula has become one of the faces of Ukraine’s volunteer movement. A former TV presenter, he founded and now leads the Prytula Charity Foundation. 

Spokeswoman Maria Pysarenko said it all started in a Kyiv office, where volunteers crowded together to organize donated resources for the war effort — including military vests, helmets, energy drinks and guns for people to pick up and fight on the front lines.

“People understand that, if they didn’t do this, the army of Russia would be here. Maybe some of us would be dead, tortured, in Kyiv, so people know this priority,” Pysarenko said. 

The foundation has raised more than $100 million in aid, split between humanitarian and military assistance.

Melaniya Podolyak, also with the Prytula Charity Foundation, said some donors only want to donate toward humanitarian needs — not military ones.

“However, again, there’s no humanitarian aid without successful military advancement,” she said. “So, this is really what we need as citizens of Ukraine.”

Melaniya Podolyak is a project coordinator and civic activist with the Prytula Charity Foundation. 

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

Pysarenko said that this question comes up a lot. She said the state does cover basic needs, and heavy weapons, like rocket launchers and artillery, but volunteers are needed to “fill in gaps which can’t be covered by the state” due to the scale of the invasion.

In December, Prytula and his team went to Washington to make that case to lawmakers in Congress.

“It’s hard to divide our society into civil and military during the war. It’s better to call them people who defend our state with weapons and people who bring them the bullets,” he said.  

At another volunteer organization in Kyiv, called the Good Bread Bakery, the focus is more basic — providing thousands of loaves of bread for soldiers and civilians in areas near the front line. 

Volunteers in action at Good Bread Bakery in Kyiv. 

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

The bakery was founded five years ago to provide opportunities for people with mental disabilities. Before the war, the bakery made lots of cakes and croissants. 

“After the war began, we understood that there is no sense in cakes and croissants and so on, and we decided to bake bread,” said Olena Martynenko, the bakery's communication manager. 

With two newer commercial ovens, volunteers are able to bake about 1,000 loaves a day that are then shipped to the front lines of eastern Ukraine. 

Volunteer baker Kostya Mykhno worked as an actor up until recently. He said working at the bakery is fun but also hard work. 

Because of the war, everyone in this country is going through hardship, Mykhno said. But volunteering is a way to channel feelings into something tangible — a sentiment shared widely in Ukraine. 

Volunteers at Good Bread Bakery knead dough for loaves of bread for soldiers and civilians living in areas near the front lines. 

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

Some volunteers do experience burnout. When that happens, dancer Nesterko said he reminds everyone that the war is still ongoing in eastern Ukraine and their efforts are needed. 

There’s a shared sense in Ukraine that everyone can chip in and do something to help out.

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class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>America’s top priority is to help Ukraine ‘defend itself’ as a sovereign nation, Blinken adviser says

What are Washington's current strategic goals and limitations in Ukraine? And how do they align with Kyiv? Derek Chollet, a counselor at the US State Department who advises Secretary of State Antony Blinken, joined The World's host Marco Werman to shed some light.

The WorldFebruary 2, 2023 · 4:15 PM EST

• By Joyce Hackel

US State Department Counselor Derek Chollet smiles ahead of a meeting in Serbia, Jan. 12, 2023. 

Darko Vojinovic/AP

As Russia continued firing missiles on residential areas in the east of the country on Thursday, senior officials from the European Union paid a visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen stood beside Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and promised more aid. She also announced the establishment in The Hague of an international center for the prosecution of war crimes in Ukraine. 

"Russia must be held accountable in courts for its odious crimes," she said. 

Leading generals from the US and Ukraine also spoke on the phone on Thursday. They discussed developments on the battlefield and how Washington can boost the war effort. But what are Washington's current strategic goals and limitations in Ukraine? And how do they align with Kyiv?

Derek Chollet, a counselor at the US State Department who advises Secretary of State Antony Blinken, joined The World's host Marco Werman to shed some light.

Marco Werman: I'm hoping you can pull back the lens a bit and help us get a sharper view of how Washington sees its role in the war in Ukraine. Is what's happening there an existential threat to Western values or something more limited, do you think?Derek Chollet: It's the former, in the sense that what we're seeing happen in Ukraine is, in fact, an assault on the most fundamental principle of international politics, which is that countries should not use force to invade another country and try to gobble up their land. That's what we and all of our partners are pushing back hard against. It's very important. The EU visit that you mentioned today at the top of the piece is yet just another sign of the unity of the coalition that we have so painstakingly worked to put together and maintain its strength over the last year.I mean, in terms of the military support, it seems like every time the US puts limits on what it'll do, whether it comes to sending Stinger missiles, the Patriot system, armored fighting vehicles, and more recently, Abrams tanks, Every time Washington draws a line, policy eventually blows past it. I mean, isn't that fair?It's not so much of drawing lines or taking them away. We are in a constant conversation with our Ukrainian partners about their needs as this conflict has evolved, and as you rightly noted, in the early days of the conflict, it was all about Stinger, shoulder fire, anti-aircraft missiles. Then it became about Javelin anti-tank missiles, then it was about air defense. And it's been about armor. And undoubtedly, Ukraine's needs are going to evolve as this conflict evolves. Our goal is very simple. We want to give Ukraine as best we can, and take into account all of our interests around the world, the means to be able to defend itself and take back the territory that Russia is trying to take away from Ukraine.Isn't that what you just kind of outlined there? Isn't that exactly the definition of mission creep?Well, the mission is quite clear. Again, to give Ukraine the means to defend itself and to be democratic, independent and sovereign. That's our mission. And importantly, that's not just the US mission. There are more than 50 countries around the world that are giving Ukraine some kind of assistance to defend itself. I didn't mean mission creep in terms of the overall mission and the goals, but the mission creep in terms of what the US will supply. For example, President Biden this week flatly ruled out providing F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, but the same thing happened with tanks, and tanks are now on their way. I mean, you used to work at the Pentagon — why give the Ukrainians tanks but not aircraft, if we're all in? Why is one OK, but not the other?Again, it's an evolving conversation that we're having with Ukrainian friends and it's a constant one. Every time Secretary Blinken talks to the Ukrainian foreign minister or President Zelenskiy, as he does very often, almost on a weekly basis, we're hearing more about their needs as their needs evolve. And look, I fully understand the Ukrainians' perspective on this. They are fighting an existential fight. This is a fight for the survival of their country. Russia is trying to take out the government of Ukraine and occupy the territory of Ukraine. So there's no such thing as too much from their perspective. But of course, we have to weigh all sorts of competing interests and needs. We are taking supplies out of our own stocks to give them to Ukraine. These are not munitions or systems that were just sitting on the shelf waiting for someone else to use. These are all being taken away from other Pentagon priorities that we've deemed Ukraine more important. But we always have to take that into account whenever we're making these sorts of decisions.Would you be surprised if F-16 fighter jets did get a green light in the months ahead?Yeah, I don't want to speculate on any particular system that Ukraine may or may not get right now. All I can say is it is a constant conversation we're having with them on their needs and what we can do to try to help them.Can you think of a historical parallel where Washington has given so much military aid in such a short time in a conflict where the US is not a combatant?Well, it's hard to find a parallel. I mean, I think the closest that comes to mind to my mind is the early days of World War II in the 1940s, through the Lend-Lease Act, where the United States came to assist the UK, in terms of defense of this country.And if we follow the World War II model, at some point the US does get directly involved and it's a broader war. How much does that stay in your kind of collection of scenarios?You can overdo the historical parallels on this, of course. But look, we pay very close attention and don't for a second feel the need to apologize for thoughts about controlling escalation here. We've got many interests around the world. Foremost among them right now is the defense of Ukraine. So as we think about ending the war and maintaining any sort of peace, the illegally annexed territory of Crimea is, of course, crucial. Can Ukraine get Crimea back and keep it? Would Russia ever agree to giving up the naval base in Sevastopol? I don't want to speculate on what Russia may or may not be willing to give up. All I can say is the United States has never recognized the annexation of Crimea as Russia conducted in 2014, and we believe that Ukraine needs to be able to regain all the territory that Russia has tried to take from it. Full stop.There's been some reporting mostly recently in The New York Times suggesting US officials are strongly considering giving Ukraine the go ahead to attack Crimea. Is there new thinking on Crimea in official US government circles?All I can say, and I'm not going to comment specifically on these reports, is that we are in constant dialogue alongside our partners with the Ukrainians on the fight that they're in and trying to give them our best advice about what steps they should take. Also trying to best assess their needs and the ways that we can collectively support them as they try to regain their sovereignty and their independence and get Russia out of their territory.What does a post-war Ukraine look like? Some have suggested it might look like Israel, you know, deal-making whereby no one is really happy and tensions live long. What we're seeking is for Ukraine to be independent, to be sovereign, to be able defend its territory, to be democratic, to be clean, to be free of corruption, which is something that's plagued that country for far too long. … Zelenskiy [is] taking some pretty serious steps just in recent days to try to get at that. And we've been quite impressed, by the way, by Ukrainian stewardship of all of the assistance they have been receiving from us and others. That's our overall goal. And we're going to do whatever we can in the best way we can to try to support Ukraine. Finally, and something of a wild card: China. What about China? Is Beijing going to continue to sit on the fence in this conflict?Well, we've been very clear with the leadership in Beijing that they need to do whatever they can to try to convince Vladimir Putin to stop what he's doing in Ukraine and to have his forces leave Ukraine. We've also been very clear with the leadership in Beijing that they do nothing to help Russia in this conflict, whether that's providing them with military supplies, whether that is helping them circumvent sanctions. And they are well aware of our concerns about this and also the potential consequences if they were to make such decisions.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. 

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Email AddressEmail AddressSubscribeI have read and agree to your Privacy Policy.Related ContentBelgium faces pressure to support sanctions on Russian diamondsWagner mercenary group recruits Africans held in Russian prisonsTanks for Ukraine are 'ready to go' when Germany and US strike a deal, retired Navy Adm. saysHow well is the grain deal working for Ukraine?

class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>How well is the grain deal working for Ukraine?

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has stressed the importance of the grain deal, saying that it needs long-term protection in order to avoid a global food crisis.

The WorldJanuary 17, 2023 · 3:30 PM EST

• By Daniel Ofman

The Eaubonne bulk carrier ship docks in the port of Mombasa, Kenya Saturday, Nov. 26, 2022. The vessel arrived with 53,300 tons of wheat for commercial use in Kenya and procured under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal to ease the export of Ukrainian grain and foodstuffs through the Black Sea, according to the honorary consulate of Ukraine in Mombasa. 

Gideon Maundu/AP

Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa has always been known as a gateway to the rest of the world.

At the beginning of the war, after Russia targeted the port, shipping came to halt. 

Dmytro Barinov, deputy head of Ukraine’s Seaport Authority, said that even before the full-scale invasion, Russia began mining the area and conducting military exercises.

“That is why the vessel can’t go out from the ports. All ports were blocked,” he said. “[Ukraine brought] the submarines, the navy ships, and Russia start[ed] to attack, all ports were under attack.” 

Russia was globally condemned for embargoing and attacking Ukrainian ports, which exacerbated international food shortages. Ukrainian grain was stuck inside the country, and there were fears that the corn and wheat stored in silos would begin to rot. Food prices around the world soared.

In July, the United Nations brokered a deal with Russia to create a “humanitarian corridor” in the Black Sea to resume sending grain abroad, with ships inspected by the UN and Turkish and Russian and Ukrainian authorities. Now, Ukraine says that the deal, which is set to expire in mid-March, is not meeting expectations. 

Barinov said that Russia is creating delays during the inspection process at the Joint Coordination Center in Turkey.

Dmytro Barinov, deputy head of Ukraine’s Seaport Authority, said that about 17 million tons of cargo has been exported as a result of the grain deal. That’s down threefold from last year, even with the grain deal still holding.

Credit:

Daniel Ofman/The World

“Now, we have more than 90 [ships] awaiting on this queue, more than one month the vessels are waiting … but Russia every day make something again” to interfere with the shipments, he said.

So far, according to Barinov, about 17 million tons of cargo has been exported as a result of the grain deal. That’s down threefold from last year, even with the grain deal still holding, he said.

Ismini Palla, a UN spokesperson for the Black Sea Grain Initiative, said that there have been vessels waiting for inspection for over a month, but she didn’t lay blame on any of the delegations.

“There are many factors that affect the timely inspection of the ship. We had numerous occasions where the joint teams have [had] to go back to a vessel to conclude the inspection.” 

Palla said that sometimes, vessels don’t have the correct documents in place or there could be difficult weather conditions, or other safety concerns.

“Sometimes, there are different approaches taken by the delegation that may affect the timely inspection of the vessel,” she said.

Ukraine hopes to expand the grain deal, to include more ports, and more products that it could export into the global market.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has stressed the importance of the grain deal, saying that it needs longterm protection in order to avoid a global food crisis.

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Email AddressEmail AddressSubscribeI have read and agree to your Privacy Policy.Related ContentUkrainians celebrate Orthodox Christmas amid raging war War in Ukraine sparks fertilizer crisis that may impact the future of global food production This Vermont couple created a home for Ukrainian refugees with a focus on children with disabilitiesPutin reinforces military, security bonds with Belarus at Minsk meeting

class=”MuiTypography-root-142 MuiTypography-h1-147″>War in Ukraine sparks fertilizer crisis that may impact the future of global food production

Russia is the world’s largest fertilizer producer, but fewer Russian agricultural products are entering the global market due to the war in Ukraine. It’s changing how farmers and fertilizer suppliers are thinking about agriculture.

The WorldJanuary 5, 2023 · 2:45 PM EST

• By Levi Bridges

The hydroponic tomato plants at Ráječek Farm rely on manufactured fertilizer to grow. Unlike traditional farmers who grow crops in soil, hydroponic farmers cannot run their businesses without industrial fertilizers, many of which come from Russia and Belarus. The war in Ukraine has led to a spike in fertilizer prices that has made global food prices rise.

Courtesy of Ráječek Farm

At Ráječek Farm in the southern Czech Republic, bright, red hydroponic tomato plants tower more than 10 feet tall inside greenhouses. 

The Sklenář family has worked the land on Ráječek Farm for four generations. The family once lost the farm to the state under communist rule. But several years after the Czech Republic switched to a market economy, the family regained control of the farm and launched a successful business growing hydroponic tomatoes.

“My parents had to reinvent the whole business again because if they did the same [farming] model as our grandparents, it wouldn’t have been economically sustainable,” said Matěj Sklenář, 28, the head agronomist at Ráječek Farm.

But last year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a war aimed at pulling a large swath of Eastern Europe back into Russia’s influence — once again disrupted the growing season on Ráječek Farm.

Some fertilizers Sklenář uses on his hydroponic tomatoes come from Russia. But last year, those fertilizers became 10 times more expensive. 

The drastic rise in fertilizer prices is a huge problem for hydroponic farmers because they mostly don’t use organic fertilizers like compost or manure.  

“If you grow in soil and you don't add fertilizer you can still do a season with decreased yield, but with hydroponics, if you don't have fertilizers, it's just not possible to grow anything,” Sklenář said.

Matěj Sklenář, 28, the head agronomist at Ráječek Farm in the south of the Czech Republic, stands in one of the farm's hydroponic greenhouses. The farm, which has been operated by the same family for four generations, previously relied on a brand of Russian fertilizer that became about ten times more expensive last year after the war in Ukraine began.

Credit:

Courtesy of Ráječek Farm

Fertilizer is used by most commercial farming operations. And industrially produced fertilizers are often credited with providing sufficient yields to feed a planet with a growing population that is projected to have reached 8 billion people.

Russia is the world’s largest producer of fertilizers. There are no sanctions against Russian agricultural products, but many shipping companies now refuse to transport Russian products, including fertilizers. 

Belarus is also a large fertilizer supplier, but sanctions against Belarus for its participation in the war in Ukraine have also severely limited the country’s contributions to the global fertilizer supply. 

These restrictions are causing fertilizer prices to skyrocket. 

Common nitrogen fertilizers found at the store are made from ammonia, which is produced from natural gas. Russia used to export a lot of ammonia to the fertilizer market through a pipeline in Ukraine. But that’s been closed since the war started. 

Fertilizer companies in Europe also make their own ammonia with natural gas from the European grid. But Europe is trying to wean itself off Russian gas right now, so fuel prices are rising. 

“The war caused the price of natural gas to increase, so that’s one of the reasons why fertilizer is so expensive,” Sklenář said.

Last year, major fertilizer companies like Norway’s Yara International had to temporarily curtail production of nitrogen fertilizers because of the war. 

Yara was eventually able to reroute their ammonia supply from other sources to increase production speed again. But fertilizer prices remain high, driving up food costs.

“What we’ve seen with the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that, sadly, the situation with food production has turned to the worst,” said Lars Røsæg, deputy chief executive officer of Yara International.

After the war started last year, Sklenář’s farm was hit with a double whammy because many of the workers are Ukrainian. They were back in Ukraine on holiday when the war started, and men who were old enough to serve were no longer allowed to leave the country. Sklenář has struggled to find new workers. 

Six sisters from Ukraine stand in a greenhouse at Ráječek Farm in the Czech Republic, four of whom are employees at the farm and two of whom sought refuge there after the war started. Many of the farm's workers come from Ukraine, however, some of their male workers cannot leave Ukraine and return to the Czech Republic because men young enough to serve in the military can't leave the country. The farm has struggled to find workers to replace them. 

Credit:

Courtesy of Ráječek Farm

It’s also more expensive to heat his greenhouses now. 

“We are pretty sure that this season, the profit will not be as big as past seasons,” Sklenář said.

Fertilizer costs have forced farmers all over Europe to make difficult decisions.

Kieran McEvoy, a farmer south of Dublin who grows wheat and barley, said that he usually buys all of his fertilizer around Christmas. But this time, he’s waiting.

“It’s not really a great plan I suppose, but we’re just hoping maybe there might be a little bit of a relaxation in the price of gas,” McEvoy said.

Hydroponic vegetables grow in long troughs year round inside greenhouses at Ráječek Farm in the Czech Republic. The price of natural gas used to heat the greenhouses rose so high after the war in Ukraine that the farm now plans to transition to solar power.

Credit:

Courtesy of Ráječek Farm

Redistribution of power

The war has made it hard on farmers, but some fertilizer companies have increased their profits. Now, they’re looking to new sources far away from Russia. 

Morocco, which holds an estimated 72% of the world’s phosphate — a key ingredient in another common fertilizer — started ramping up production this year. 

In the Sahara desert, miners blast the earth with explosives to mine phosphate, sending clouds of red dust barreling across the desert.

Damian Berger, co-founder of Ishtar Analytics, a think tank focusing on North Africa and the Middle East, said that Morocco uses its mighty fertilizer reserves as a tool for soft power by helping countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa increase their food production. Less Russian fertilizer is a potential opportunity for a country like Morocco. 

“Morocco has been building up its fertilizer diplomacy and industry for a situation like the one we're facing right now,” Berger said.

Morocco now plans to open a new fertilizer plant in Brazil, a country that once relied heavily on Russian fertilizer. 

Russia also extends its influence in both South America and Africa. But with the war grinding on, Berger said that Morocco is becoming a safer trading partner than Russia. 

The shift in the global fertilizer market is giving African countries greater power in global food production at a time when hunger is on the rise.

“There is the potential for Morocco to assume a leading role as the spokesperson of African food security concerns,” Berger said.

The war is also giving more importance to new projects aimed at creating so-called green fertilizers that don’t require fossil fuels to produce. 

Yara International, the Norwegian fertilizer company, is currently building a new facility with the capacity to produce green fertilizer that they hope will be ready later this year. 

“[Last year] opened the eyes of the whole world to the importance that we accelerate the green transition of the food chain in a way where we reduce the dependency on Russia, so that we can have a sustainable and secure food supply,” Yara International’s Røsæg said. 

The fertilizer company Yara International's production plant in Le Havre, France. Last year, Yara International had to temporarily curtail production of nitrogen fertilizers because of the war in Ukraine, although they eventually were able to get their production up to speed again. Production problems caused by the war have made fertilizer prices skyrocket.

Credit:

Courtesy of Yara International

The fertilizer shortage, and other difficulties related to the war in Ukraine, are pushing some farmers to pursue more sustainable practices. 

Sklenář in the Czech Republic is now investing in solar panels so he doesn’t have to heat his greenhouses with natural gas. 

For Sklenář, the difficulties associated with the war aren’t all negative.

“It hurts a little bit, but it’s worth the pain to get out of this and become independent from Russia,” Sklenář said.

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class=”MuiTypography-root-225 MuiTypography-h1-230″>Philadelphia's Ukrainian diaspora puts a unique spin on holiday classic in solidarity with Ukraine

The Ukrainian community in Philadelphia is the second-largest in the United States. As members of the diaspora celebrated the holidays with a special Ukrainian version of “The Nutcracker,” they reflected on a year of worry and solidarity.

The WorldDecember 30, 2022 · 5:15 PM EST

• By Ashley Westerman

The Voloshky School of Ukrainian Dance in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, staged "The Nutcracker" with a Ukrainian twist.

Courtesy of Andrew Nynka and The Ukrainian Weekly 

For Larysa Spisic, a Ukrainian American whose family is from Lviv, Ukraine, it’s been hard watching the war in Ukraine from afar.

“You definitely feel helpless at times because we are over here and we can give support and prayers and good wishes, but physically, we really cannot do much,” said Spisic, who lives in the Philadelphia area, which has the second-largest Ukrainian community in the United States.

Spisic, the director of the Voloshky School of Ukrainian Dance in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, wanted to find a way to showcase Ukrainian culture and raise money for the cause.

So, she decided to stage the holiday classic, “The Nutcracker” — with a Ukrainian twist, set in a small, Ukrainian village with Ukrainian folk dancing, decorations, dolls and food on prominent display throughout. The production had a two-show run on Dec. 23 at the Josephine Muller Auditorium in Jenkintown.

Because of Russia’s invasion, she said the classic ballet by Pyotr Tchaikovsky has a special impact. The famous composer was born in Russia, but his great-grandfather was from Ukraine’s central Poltava region, according to researchers.

The Voloshky School of Ukrainian Dance in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, staged "The Nutcracker" with a Ukrainian twist.

Credit:

Courtesy of Andrew Nynka and The Ukrainian Weekly 

“Ukrainians feel very strongly that we do have some personal connection to him as well, and we wanted to embrace that,” Spisic said.

It’s just one way that the community has been resilient and strong throughout the 10 months of the invasion, said Ulana Dubas of Dresher, Pennsylvania.

Dubas’ family is also from Lviv and her husband’s family is from the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, small parts of which are still occupied by Russian forces.

“We did a lot of drives for clothing and food, monetary donations that really brought the community together in many ways,” she said. “And that’s continuing now because it has to.”

Dubas’ 10-year-old daughter, Mila, was one of some 50 dancers from the Voloshky School of Ukrainian Dance. The school, now in its 50th year, is considered to be a staple of the Ukrainian American community in Philadelphia.

A handful of other Philadelphia organizations and guest dancers also chipped in and donated their time to help make the production happen, including community veterans of Ukrainian folk dance, the Metropolitan Ballet Company and one of Philadelphia Ballet’s Principal Ballerinas, Oksana Maslova.

The Voloshky School of Ukrainian Dance in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, staged "The Nutcracker" with a Ukrainian twist.

Credit:

Courtesy of Andrew Nynka and The Ukrainian Weekly 

This collaboration, the leaders of the production say, is a testament to the overall support Ukrainian Americans say they’ve received since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year.

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class=”MuiTypography-root-225 MuiTypography-h1-230″>Exclusive: Rounding up a cyberposse for Ukraine

Russian hackers have been trying to break into Naftogaz systems for years, so when Mandiant offered to deploy hunt teams for free to see if anything was lurking in their networks, the company executives couldn’t believe their luck.

December 2, 2022 · 5:30 PM EST

A woman walks with a power plant in the background, in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, March 16, 2022. Ukrainian officials say Russian military hackers tried to knock out power to millions of Ukrainians that week in a long-planned attack but were foiled. 

Rodrigo Abd/AP

Just weeks after Russian tanks began rolling into Ukraine, a representative from the cybersecurity firm Mandiant phoned executives at Naftogaz, Ukraine’s largest state-owned oil and natural gas company, with an unusual offer: Would Naftogaz be open to having Mandiant check their network for bad guys?

Russian hackers have been trying to break into Naftogaz systems for years, so when Mandiant offered to deploy hunt teams for free to see if anything was lurking in their networks, the company executives couldn’t believe their luck.

The thing is, it wasn’t really luck. The offer was part of a broad effort by Western tech companies to help Ukraine protect itself against Russian cyberattacks in a time of war. Dozens of companies from the US cybersecurity, threat intelligence and tech world — from Mandiant to Microsoft — have banded together in a kind of volunteer cyberposse, wading into the middle of the conflict without a pretense of neutrality.

They call themselves the Cyber Defense Assistance Collaboration (CDAC), and it is the brainchild of Greg Rattray, a former chief information security officer at JP Morgan Chase. For months, he has been helping build a kind of public-private partnership to combat destructive cyberattacks. This is the first time he’s speaking in depth about the initiative publicly.

US officials have been talking about public-private partnerships to fight destructive cyberattacks for years. The animating logic is that the National Security Agency and the military’s cyberarm, Cyber Command, often have intelligence about cyberattacks before or while they are happening. US cybersecurity companies have the expertise to block them. So, it would make sense that they should join forces to stop them. 

What makes this particular CDAC effort different is that the partner in this case isn’t Washington. It’s Kyiv, and it has become a test case for how such a joining of forces might eventually work in the US. 

“I think the war started on a Thursday and I started making calls on the Monday,” Rattray told the "Click Here" podcast, adding that some two dozen US companies quickly signed on offering to provide licenses, personnel, and expertise to help Ukraine defend its networks. "Click Here" and The Record are editorially independent units of Recorded Future, which has been involved in the effort as well. 

“I think it was easier to get companies to sign on because of the clear transgressions of the Russians,” Rattray said. “Ukraine was a place where people were willing to volunteer quickly to try to figure out what could be done.” 

A natural target for hackers

Naftogaz is a natural target for Russian hackers with its vast network of suppliers, subsidiaries, and online billing systems — any and all of which could be open to cyberattacks. A determined adversary could then use that access to monkey-bar over to Naftogaz and potentially hobble the nation’s gas delivery systems or even turn out the lights. 

Russia had already done something similar back in 2015, when it cracked into Ukraine’s electrical grid and flipped the switch on power to nearly a quarter of a million people in Kyiv for as many as six hours. The feeling was if Russia was willing to do that back then, it would be willing to do so again, during a war, when the gloves are off.

That’s what prompted Ron Bushar, a chief technology officer at Mandiant, to initiate the call to Naftogaz and ask if they wanted Mandiant’s special software programs to sweep their networks. Bushar said there was a general sense that Russian actors were probably lurking in Naftogaz networks and the sweeps, or hunts, were meant to find them.

A hunt team or sweep is the cyber equivalent of a swarm of cops looking for signs of a break in: a kind of high-tech dusting for prints, checking for theft and searching for signs that whoever broke in left nothing — like malicious code — behind. 

“We do that across thousands and thousands of systems very, very rapidly,” Bushar said. “And if we see something from that sweep, then we’ll pivot to that system and do a deeper dive of that system.” 

The thing was, they didn’t find much: Malicious code that could wipe information from hard drives, prepositioned malware that hackers could activate later, but no wholesale douse-the-lights badness. 

“There was no overt detection of aggressive activity,” Bushar said. “But we did find evidence that these attackers had gained access and were moving throughout the environment.”

So, they find where they had slipped in and shut them out.

In the early days of the war, Russian hacking teams had put a number of slow-burn, low-grade attacks in motion all over the country, not just targeting Naftogaz. They erased hard drives and hobbled authentication systems so employees couldn’t log in. 

But once Naftogaz secured and fortified its network perimeter — the walls around their computer systems — wiper malware somehow kept reappearing in their systems. Passwords and logins continued to be stolen. They could see it happening but couldn’t explain why. And then, Bushar said, it dawned on them: they “had to adopt a military mindset.”

Insider threat

It turns out what is different about defending computer networks during a war, Bushar and his team realized, is that the perimeter you think you secured is always changing. What they hadn’t accounted for was that the Russian troops now occupying pockets of Ukraine had started entering gas installations and trying to crack into their operating systems.

“In eastern parts of the country, as Russia was taking territory, they were obviously occupying critical facilities,” Bushar said.

Those included Naftogaz data centers and local telecoms and ministry offices.

“So, we were able to definitively point to systems and IP addresses that were physically located in captured territory and that’s where we were seeing these attacks coming from.”

In fact, sometimes the attacks looked like they were coming from inside Naftogaz itself. They came to find that it was not because they had breached the perimeter but because, Bushar said, “Russia was coming from inside the building or inside the network. They had physically captured that data center or that system so they could plug in their own systems and continue to attack other parts of the infrastructure. … It’s almost like you’re dealing with an insider threat.”

So, they adjusted. They began cutting off systems in areas that were about to fall to Russian forces.

“We were starting to recommend that if people were retreating from a certain province, Naftogaz should start segmenting those systems off the network before they fell into enemy hands.”

And that’s what they did. Naftogaz ended up instructing their employees to contact supervisors if their towns were overrun by Russian soldiers, so their network access could be cut. They would literally call Naftogaz as they were fleeing overrun cities. Once that kind of reporting started, Naftogaz could adjust perimeter security to reflect events on the ground. Bashar said after that, the mysterious insider threats went away.

Technical capability

When CDAC founder Rattray began looking for volunteers for the collaborative, he said his first phone call was to Art Coviello, the former CEO of RSA Security, one of the early entrants into the world of cybersecurity and encryption. Now, Coviello runs a venture capital fund that invests exclusively in cybersecurity companies.

“Ukrainians had a capability,” he said. “The fact that a lot of companies had [software] development sites in Ukraine speaks to the technical capability and the education that was available there. They just had never had the opportunity or perhaps the financial resources to invest in their own defenses as we have here in the US.” 

So, he said, CDAC came in to supplement that.

Coviello said the effort isn’t entirely driven by the war. People outside Ukraine should take note because the cyberweapons Russia wields against Ukraine are unlikely to remain there.

“I wouldn’t underestimate the Russians’ capability,” he said.

“What people fail to realize is that the US lives in the biggest digital glass house” in the world, Coviello said. “We have more to lose than anybody else because we are so interconnected and we are so dependent on technology. All of our critical infrastructures, all of our businesses have been transformed.”

Rattray said Ukraine has surprised everyone, not just on the ground but in cyberspace, too. It has proven to be very agile, quickly moving systems into the cloud where data is out of reach of bombings and basic hacks. Their technical expertise has allowed them to pivot quickly when under assault and now they have found themselves on the receiving end of tremendous assistance from the tech world.

“Russians have not been as operationally proficient as we’ve thought they would be,” Rattray said. “They’re doing things we would expect in the digital space, things like information competition, monitoring things in a classic way to gather intelligence through cyberspace. We certainly haven’t seen the type of disruption that we might have expected.”

An earlier version of this story originally appeared in The Record.Media. There was additional reporting by Sean Powers and Will Jarvis.

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Count me in!Related ContentAs war rages at home, Ukrainian choir heads to Carnegie Hall to celebrate 100 years of ‘Carol of the Bells’ ‘Chervona Kalyna’: This Ukrainian song has become the symbol of freedom and resilienceInvestigators look for answers after Russian forces buried more than 400 bodies in a mass grave in UkraineNorth Korea-Russia relations are warming up amid war in Ukraine

class=”MuiTypography-root-225 MuiTypography-h1-230″>Investigators look for answers after Russian forces buried more than 400 bodies in a mass grave in Ukraine

A forest in the city of Izium in northeast Ukraine is home to one of the largest mass graves discovered since the Russian invasion.

The WorldNovember 21, 2022 · 12:45 PM EST

• By Shirin Jaafari

The remains at the mass burial site in Izium, Ukraine, have been exhumed but some empty caskets and crosses remain.
 

Shirin Jaafari/The World

One of the largest mass graves discovered since the Russian invasion in Ukraine lies in a wooded area just outside the northeastern city of Izium.

On a recent visit, fog enveloped the tall pine trees surrounding the graves.

The remains have been exhumed and relocated to the local morgue but a faint smell lingered. A few open, empty caskets stuck awkwardly out of the graves. Not far away, a pile of discarded disposable gloves, masks and other personal protective gear was a reminder of the ongoing forensic investigations here.

Since the recapture of Izium by the Ukrainian forces in September, investigators have been trying to identify the remains in this mass grave. Families with missing loved ones are searching for answers.

In some cases, all the victims got was a number: 146. 189. No name, no cause of death, nothing else.

Yulia Tatarinova, of Izium, Ukraine, fills in forms related to her DNA sample in hopes of finding the body of her husband.
 

Credit:

Shirin Jaafari/The World

Out of 451 bodies that were discovered, 150 are yet to be identified, according to Oleksandr Filchakov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office. At least 17 bodies bore evidence of torture, he said, including ropes tied around their necks, hands tied behind their backs and cracked bones.

Liudmyla Vaschana has been searching for her 31-year-old son, Eduard, since March. When the Russian military started its attack on Izium, she said, Eduard joined the volunteer fighters called the Territorial Defense Unit. Vaschana left Izium to care for her other son, 19-year-old ​​Oleh, who had been injured while fighting in another part of the country. He was recovering in Lviv, a city close to the Polish border.

The fighting got intense in Izium, and on March 6, Vaschana lost touch with Eduard. Four days later, she said, the house that his unit was based in was bombed. Other members of the unit told Vaschana that they searched for his body in the rubble but never found it.

A pile of discarded personal protective gear used by investigators and exhumers at the mass grave in Izium, Ukraine.
 

Credit:

Shirin Jaafari/The World

“I just want to find my son,” she said, adding, “That’s the most important thing.”

In September, Vaschana called a hotline set up for missing persons and reported her son missing. But she said so far, no one has gotten back to her.

When The World spoke to Vaschana earlier this month, she was visiting a mobile laboratory to give DNA samples. Technicians swabbed the mouths of visitors, then filled in a form with their personal information.

The lab, set up with the help of the French government, collects DNA from those who have missing relatives. It then runs the samples through a database collected from the remains found in the mass grave in Izium.

Relatives of victims have their DNA samples taken at a mobile laboratory in Izium, Ukraine, set up with the help of the French government.
 

Credit:

Shirin Jaafari/The World

“We’re asking relatives of Ukrainian soldiers to submit their DNA samples,” Dmytro Chubenko, Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office spokesperson, told reporters outside the mobile clinic. “We’re constantly finding mass graves of Ukrainian soldiers, we’re examining their bodies and collecting their DNA samples […] to try and identify as many people that were buried here as possible.”

‘We will never forgive them’

There are 7,700 war crimes cases under investigation in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine alone, said Filchakov, from the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office.

A map in his office marked the areas where those investigations are being carried out. Some are off-limits, he said, because they remain under Russian occupation. Others are mined, or are too close to the border where Russian troops are stationed.

“Geographically, we are in an unfavorable position because we are close to the  border with the aggressive country [Russia],” he said.

Besides the arrests, torture and killing of Ukrainians, Filchakov added, the Russian forces have been implementing changes with the goal to erase Ukrainian identity.

Dmytro Leontyev, 41, lost his father on March 20. He said his neighbors buried him in the backyard but then Russian soldiers dug his body up and buried him in the mass grave. Leontyev hasn't been able to find his father's body. "He was a good man," he said. "He was a taxi driver his whole life. He helped everyone and everyone wanted to be his passenger."

Credit:

Shirin Jaafari 

“We have found documents that were signed by the occupying authorities where they were confiscating Ukrainian school books, and they were introducing Russian school programs,” he said. “In some cases, we found evidence that the Russians were rewriting history. For example, they were saying the famous Ukrainian poet [Taras] Shevchenko was Russian.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin started this war with the excuse to protect the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, Filchakov said.

“My family lives here, my wife, my kids, my parents and overall people in the Kharkiv region are Russian speaking. He [Putin] is directing his army to kill our wives and our children. ​​All I can tell you is that we will never forgive them.”

Documenting war crimes

Beyond Izium, there are major efforts underway to document crimes committed by the Russian forces all over Ukraine.

Truth Hounds started this work in 2014 when Russia took over Crimea.

Roman Avramenko, executive director of Truth Hounds, at its office in Kyiv, Ukraine.
 

Credit:

Shirin Jaafari/The World

Earlier this year, when Russia invaded Ukraine, the nongovernmental organization redoubled its efforts to reach affected areas quickly to collect and document as much evidence as possible.

“This expertise that we developed and gained during previous years really helped us to contribute to the justice processes,” said Roman Avramenko, executive director at the Truth Hounds office in Kyiv.

When it comes to building a case, Avramenko explained, time is of the essence.

“Time flies, craters [get] filled […] people will forget details,” he said. “Some buildings have been repaired and restored. The evidence will just go away, in many cases forever, unfortunately.”

Before investigators leave on a trip, they collect as much data as they can. They search for videos, photos and social media posts online that could shed light on what happened. After verifying them, they go to the scene and begin interviewing witnesses and collecting evidence.

Avramenko gave an example of a recent successful investigation. In March, at least 10 people were killed in an attack on people standing in line for bread in the northeast city of Chernihiv. An American was among the victims.

“We were able to prove there were no immediate military targets that potentially could be legal targets for this attack,” he said. “And that the Russian troops used weapons of indiscriminate nature.”

Avramenko and his team are working to bring cases to courts in Ukraine and outside. He suspects the extent of the crimes committed by the Russian forces to be far beyond what they can document and prove in court.

“The Ukrainians have been so dehumanized in the eyes of the regular Russian soldier that they see no difference between killing a cat or killing a child,” he said.

Volodymyr Solohub supported the reporting of this story.

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class=”MuiTypography-root-225 MuiTypography-h1-230″>North Korea-Russia relations are warming up amid war in Ukraine

Russia’s relationship with North Korea goes back decades. Now, there are reports that Russia is getting military assistance from North Korea amid the war in Ukraine. Yet, both governments deny it. 

The WorldNovember 17, 2022 · 3:45 PM EST

• By Daniel Ofman

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un shake hands during their meeting in Vladivostok, Russia on April 25, 2019. North Korea on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, accused the United States of cooking up a "plot-breeding story" on its alleged arms transfer to Russia, arguing it has never sent artillery shells to Moscow.

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP/Pool/File

The Russian military has been steadily losing ground in Ukraine for months. That’s despite the fact the Kremlin has mobilized tens of thousands of new recruits for the war. 

Moscow is also getting help from abroad. Iran is supplying Russia with drones. And, according to Western officials, the Iranians are providing ballistic missiles as well. 

Now, there are reports that Russia is getting assistance from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as well, with the country providing artillery shells, rockets and winter military uniforms to Russia. 

Yet, both governments deny it. 

“We have information that despite the public denials that we’ve heard from the DPRK, that the DPRK is covertly supplying Russia’s war in Ukraine, with a significant number of artillery shells,” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said earlier this month.

Russia’s relationship with the country goes back decades.

Sung-yoon Lee, who teaches Korean politics and foreign relations at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, said that the role of the Soviet Union is crucial to the history of North Korea. 

Kim Il-sung, the founder of the North Korean state, was glorified by the former Soviet Union. Kim was an officer in the Soviet Army. After World War II, Joseph Stalin chose Kim to be the leader of North Korea, and supported his decision to invade South Korea in 1950. 

“The Soviet Union became thereafter North Korea’s most important supporter militarily, politically, and perhaps most importantly, economically, throughout the Cold War,” Lee said. 

That relationship was not always smooth. And with the fall of the Soviet Union, relations between Russia and North Korea cooled down a lot.

But a decade later, that changed. Pyongyang rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin when he became the first top leader of either the Soviet Union or Russia to visit North Korea, Lee said. During that visit, crowds at the airport cheered and waved Russian and North Korean flags to welcome Putin. Lee said this was the start of a new era of warmer relations between Russia and North Korea.

“When it comes to security matters, the two nations have always been partners, and with Putin’s dreadful war in Ukraine, the old dynamics of the cold war, Russia, China, North Korea on one side, and the United States, South Korea and Japan on the other side, this Cold War rift has come back,” Lee explained. 

He said it makes sense for Kim Il-sung’s grandson, Kim Jong-un, to be supplying Putin with military equipment.  

Fyodor Tertitskiy agrees. He’s a researcher at Kookmin University in South Korea, where he studies the North Korean military.

Tertitskiy said the Russian military has lost a lot of their modern equipment in Ukraine, and they’re now using older artillery and tanks.

“For that, you need ammunition, and North Korean uses a lot of Soviet equipment, and North Korean can supply exactly this kind of ammunition which might have been provided to them by the USSR ironically,” he said. 

Tertitskiy said North Korea needs the cash, as well as oil, food and humanitarian assistance from Russia. And the country is very military industry-oriented, he said, putting it in a good position to provide military hardware. 

Tertitsky said there’s reason to be skeptical — there hasn’t been a smoking gun, or concrete evidence that North Korea is supplying Russia with lots of weaponry. 

But he said the fact that these reports are so believable says something about the state of Russia’s military and its war in Ukraine.

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Count me in!Related ContentIzium was liberated in September. The hard work of returning back to normal has only begun.War in Ukraine spurs new bonds between historians of shared Soviet past'I thought we were going to die': A Ukrainian woman speaks out about her ordeal as a prisoner of warRussia’s war creates economic hardships for Central Asian migrants

class=”MuiTypography-root-225 MuiTypography-h1-230″>War in Ukraine spurs new bonds between historians of shared Soviet past

As Russian dissidents flee to Poland, this moment has created an unexpected opportunity for historians in both countries to work together to uncover the more disturbing aspects of their shared history.

The WorldNovember 11, 2022 · 5:30 PM EST

• By Rebecca Rosman

Historians come together to uncover disturbing aspects of Polish and Eastern European shared history.

Magdalena Chodownik/The World

Dasha Krotova was heading home to her apartment in Moscow late one evening when she felt a presence trailing her from behind. 

It was two policemen, who followed her to her door.

“They started to warn me and my husband about threats,” Krotova said. 

Threats related to her work with Memorial, the Nobel-Prize-winning nongovernmental organization known for exposing Soviet human rights abuses, such as atrocities committed in the Gulag labor camps, or killings in Chechnya.

Krotova had been working as a photographer and editor for Memorial when the police warned her and her husband that they were on a government watch list. 

The incident happened on Feb. 24 — the same day Russia invaded Ukraine.

Two days later, Krotova fled to Warsaw. She’s now one of several Memorial employees living in exile in the Polish capital, alongside dissidents and activists from all over the Soviet diaspora.

This moment has created an unexpected opportunity for the historians among them to work together to uncover the more disturbing aspects of their shared history. 

Long before Russia invaded Ukraine, the history of Eastern Europe has been written and rewritten — with governments in power using their leverage to tell the version of history they prefer.

Zbigniew Gluza is the president of KARTA, a Polish nongovernmental organization.

Credit:

Magdalena Chodownik/The World

Zbigniew Gluza is the president of KARTA, a Polish nongovernmental organization with a similar mission to Memorial — to uncover the darker aspects of Poland’s past.

For 40 years, KARTA’s team of historians has been revealing concealed parts of Poland’s 20th-century history, such as testimonies from the 1940s Volhynia massacre and a database of Poles repressed in the USSR.

“History needs to be seen in the international context, so we definitely understood that having a partnership in the east would be very beneficial,” Gluza said.

Recent collaborations with Memorial have helped expose the details behind events like the 1940 Katyn massacre, in which 22,000 Polish military personnel were killed by Soviet forces.

An agreement between rights group Memorial and nongovernmental organization KARTA.

Credit:

Magdalena Chodownik/The World

“Thank God we have a generation of people interested in true history, not the falsified Soviet history,” said Andrei Sannikov, a member of the Belarussian opposition who has been living in exile in Warsaw for 10 years. 

He said that for decades now, the government in Belarus has been censoring its own history — particularly anything that contradicts the narrative of Russia being a friend to Belarus.

“We didn't pay much attention to the history lessons and even the tensions that we are having today,” Sannikova said.

Andrei Sannikov is a member of the Belarussian opposition who has been living in exile in Warsaw, Poland, for 10 years.

Credit:

Magdalena Chodownik/The World

“Not just with Russia … but even among ourselves. It is quite an indication that we have a long way to go to reconcile — even with friends.”

Friends being allies in other former Soviet countries. But Sannikov is also optimistic and believes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has catapulted a bond between countries across the Soviet diaspora.

People aren’t just questioning the Russian version of history — but also versions of history being championed by each of their own governments.

Eugeniusz Smolar, a foreign policy specialist and former journalist, gave the example of Poland’s far-right government, which he said has been revising history when it comes to things like Polish complicity in the Holocaust.

“Poles often tend to look at themselves as the victims of history and do not recognize enough that they also occasionally behaved as the perpetrators.”

Eugeniusz Smolar, foreign policy specialist and former journalist

“Poles often tend to look at themselves as the victims of history and do not recognize enough that they also occasionally behaved as the perpetrators,” Smolar said.

Indeed, in 2018, Poland’s far-right government passed a law making it a crime in Poland to accuse the Polish people of being complicit in the face of German atrocities. 

This, despite evidence that some acted as bystanders or even facilitated the Nazis in carrying out their mission. 

The details of the real history have been well documented, thanks in part to the work of organizations like KARTA.  

Gluza believes people’s appetites for that real history has only improved since the start of the war.

“For 40 years, KARTA and other organizations have been building up a certain energy that only now is being released into action,” Gluza said.

“Now, nobody wants to risk going back to the totalitarianism of the past — understanding real history may be one of the greatest tools to fight it."
 

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class=”MuiTypography-root-225 MuiTypography-h1-230″>The war in Ukraine is hampering efforts to stop a polio outbreak

Just 10 days before the war began last February, Ukrainian officials launched a nationwide vaccination campaign to stop a rare polio outbreak in the country. But the war has made controlling the outbreak nearly impossible.

The WorldNovember 3, 2022 · 4:45 PM EDT

• By Levi Bridges

Anastasia, 3, is held by her mother, as she receives treatment at a schoolhouse that has been converted into a field hospital, in Mostyska, western Ukraine, March 24, 2022. The United Nations children’s agency says Russia’s invasion has displaced half of Ukraine’s children, one of the largest such displacements since World War II. 

Nariman El-Mofty/AP

Last fall, a rare polio outbreak began in western Ukraine. A vaccination campaign in Ukraine kicked off on Feb. 14. But just 10 days later, Russia invaded Ukraine — imperiling the campaign’s success. After the initial outbreak, officials found 19 other people who tested as having had polio — a deadly disease that can lead to paralysis.

“In a number of regions, vaccinations have now been suspended mostly because of shelling and rocket assaults,” said Ihor Kuzin, Ukraine’s deputy health minister. 

Kuzin also said that recent attacks on the electrical grid have made it difficult to store vaccines in proper refrigeration so they don’t spoil. Transporting spoiled vaccines is also a challenge because the war has made it impossible to carry them by plane.

But one of the biggest worries for health officials attempting to manage the polio outbreak during the war is the millions of people — many with young children — who haven’t completed a full polio vaccination and then, migrated internally within Ukraine to seek safety, or sought refuge elsewhere in Europe.

“One challenging thing about polio is the fact that 90% [of people] are asymptomatic carriers; these are individuals that would not come down with paralysis but they can shed the virus,” said Raymond Dankoli, the World Health Organization’s polio outbreak response coordinator in Ukraine.

Children look out the window of an unheated Lviv-bound train, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022.

Credit:

Vadim Ghirda/AP

A rare outbreak

Early last winter, Ukrainian parents were filing into health clinics in central Ukraine to vaccinate their children against polio, a process that takes only seconds. 

The oral polio vaccine has been instrumental in stopping the global spread of polio. But that same lifesaving vaccine has also been linked to a global uptick in polio outbreaks. Oral polio vaccines contain a weakened strain of the virus. And in rare instances, especially among high numbers of unvaccinated people, the weakened virus in the vaccine can mutate and start circulating, causing a polio outbreak. 

The vaccine-derived polio outbreak began in western Ukraine last fall when a 17-month-old girl in the Rivne region was diagnosed with acute flaccid paralysis — a rare but debilitating side effect of polio. A second case of paralytic polio was discovered soon after in a boy who lived in the Zakarpattya region. 

The two cases occurred in regions of western Ukraine that don’t even border each other, underscoring the severity of the situation. With polio, just one case is considered an outbreak because the disease is targeted for global eradication. Unlike COVID-19, which might circulate forever, polio can be completely contained if enough people are vaccinated. 

People, mostly women and children, try to get onto a train bound for Lviv, at the Kyiv railway station, Ukraine, Friday, March 4, 2022. 

Credit:

Andriy Dubchak/AP

'Let's wait until we go home'

Health Minister Kuzin said that many Ukrainians are hesitant to make unnecessary trips to a hospital or health clinic — given that an air raid siren might go off at any time. He also said that the government has begun dispatching mobile brigades in some parts of Ukraine to deliver vaccines.

Dankoli, with the World Health Organization, said that the war could cause polio to spread further around Ukraine or elsewhere in Europe or beyond.

A lot of Ukrainians who’ve fled home with their kids could get them vaccinated elsewhere. But many are choosing to wait. 

That's according to Pavlo Kovtonyuk, co-founder of the Ukrainian Healthcare Center and the former deputy health minister of Ukraine. 

“The attitude is ‘let's wait until we go home and we'll go to our doctor.’ They just postpone receiving care, not just for vaccinations but also chronic issues,” Kovtonyuk said.

In his previous position, Kovtonyuk helped to usher in major reforms aimed at improving the country’s health system, reducing corruption and creating more equitable and affordable access to health care. 

Kovtonyuk said that when he set out to launch these reforms, Ukraine was a very vaccine-hesitant country. In 2015, the number of children under 1 year of age who received the polio vaccine was less than 17%. The ministry launched special campaigns to increase vaccination rates, and the reforms improved patients' trust in the medical system, in part, because they allowed them to choose their own doctors. Gradually, faith in the medicine system improved, he said, and more Ukrainains got vaccinated for diseases like polio. 

“We managed to get vaccination levels to an average of 80% of the population, which is good compared to what it was before, but not sufficient because for a vaccine like polio, you need 95%,” Kovtonyuk said.

Progress made in increasing the number of vaccinations in Ukraine started to level off during the pandemic, with the number of vaccines given for some diseases, like polio, even decreasing, according to data from the Ukraine’s Health Ministry.

One reason vaccination rates started to decrease, according to experts, might be partially linked to Russian propaganda about COVID-19 vaccines.

Liubomyr Mysiv, the deputy director of the Ukrainian research group Rating, said Russian propaganda convinced some Russian speakers in Ukraine that Russian vaccines against COVID-19 are safer than Western ones.

“It’s hard not to succumb to this propaganda, because it’s very well-made and it plays into people’s fears,” Mysiv said. 

Fears about getting a COVID-19 vaccine could convince some to forgo getting other vaccines. But Mysiv said that his organization’s research shows that the majority of Ukrainians now view vaccines favorably.

As the war continues, attacks on Ukraine’s health care infrastructure will continue to impede the vaccine campaign against polio. Kovtonyuk, of the Ukrainian Healthcare Center, has documented 223 Russian attacks on Ukrainian health care facilities.

“Russia is using health care as a means of war,” Kovtonyuk said. 

The current estimate of Ukrainian babies under 1 year old who got vaccinated against polio this year has fallen to less than 50%, which means that so far, the war has erased the huge gains that were made in stopping the spread of polio in Ukraine. 

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class=”MuiTypography-root-225 MuiTypography-h1-230″>War in Ukraine expedites Poland's move to destroy Soviet-era monuments

The Polish government has steadily been demolishing dozens of Soviet-era monuments ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But many Polish citizens believe preserving their country's complicated history is important.

The WorldNovember 1, 2022 · 5:00 PM EDT

• By Rebecca Rosman

A view of Soviet monuments at the Warsaw's Soviet cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, Oct. 8, 2022.

Omar Marques/The World

Pawel Lesnikowski, on a recent afternoon stroll at the Soviet Military Cemetery near central Warsaw, caught himself staring up at a giant obelisk.

“I don’t like that it’s here,” Lesnikowski, a 41-year-old software developer, confessed about the 1950-built obelisk that’s part of a larger memorial dedicated to 20,000 Russian Red Army soldiers who fought in World War II.

Pawel Lesnikowski, 41, a software developer, poses for a portrait next to the Warsaw's Soviet cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, Oct. 8, 2022.

Credit:

Omar Marques/The World

Lesnikowski isn’t alone in his sentiments. The Polish government has steadily been demolishing dozens of Soviet-era monuments ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But many Polish citizens believe preserving their country's complicated history is important.

People walk past the Soviet monuments at the Warsaw's Soviet cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, Oct. 8, 2022.

Credit:

Omar Marques/The World

On the one hand, the Soviet Union liberated Poland from the Nazi regime. But with that liberation came a new era under communist rule.

“‘[The] official narration was that [the Soviets] gave us freedom,” said Rafal Leskiewicz, a spokesperson at the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), a historical organization run by the Polish government.

“But it wasn't freedom. We were under surveillance and under totalitarian regime control.”

In 2016, Poland’s far-right government passed a law ordering the demolition of any remaining Soviet-era monuments as part of an effort to “decommunize” Poland (which shed communist rule in 1989), with the exception of cemeteries or war graves.

But a lot of towns didn’t have enough money to fund the demolitions. That is, until this past March, when IPN started providing financial aid — thanks to a renewed push to speed things up after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

“We said if even now in the 21st century — in 2022 — we are still seeing Soviet symbols in the public sphere, it means that the totalitarian regime is still alive,” Leskiewicz said.

Since March, the IPN has helped oversee the demolitions of more than 20 monuments, mostly in small towns across the country.

The demolition of a giant concrete Red Army memorial in the southwest town of Brzeg in August marked the 24th destruction of this year.

But some people still have mixed feelings.

“It’s a part of history,” said Martin Dzienniak, who comes to the Soviet Military Cemetery in Warsaw every day to walk his dog. “Let it stay as it is.”

Martin Dzienniak, 44, CTO Cloud Service Provider, poses for a portrait next to the Warsaw's Soviet cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, Oct. 8, 2022.

Credit:

Omar Marques/The World

While the cemetery remains exempt from demolition, one site that is not protected happens to also be the tallest building in all of Poland.

The 650-foot tall Palace of Culture and Science, gifted by Josef Stalin in 1955, sticks out in central Warsaw.

Today, the building is used as an exhibition center and art space, and includes a cinema, two museums and an auditorium that can seat 3,000 people.

Still, Leskiewicz said it’s on his list of buildings that must go.

“This is the symbol of Warsaw, but generally, it's also a symbol of perpetrators,” Leskiewicz said.

People line up to enter a museum inside the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland, Oct. 8, 2022.

Credit:

Omar Marques/The World

While there’s no official plans to destroy the palace, it’s been a topic of debate for a long time.

But the young crowds gathered on the outside promenade on a recent Saturday afternoon call the debate nonsense.

“The palace is the most important place in Warsaw,” said Dariusz Wiater, speaking from the terrace bar.

Dariusz Wiater and Tomasz Katana pose for a portrait as they enjoy a drink at the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland, on Oct. 8, 2022.

Credit:

Omar Marques/The World

“I don’t feel any association between [the palace] and Russia.”

Luigi Erbacci, an Italian architect living in Warsaw, said that associations aside, historical heritage is something to be preserved no matter the context.

“We can always learn something from history,” Erbacci said as he admired the palace’s facade from the outside steps.

Architect Luigi Erbacci, 34 from Italy's Bologna region, poses for a portrait at the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, Poland, on Oct. 8, 2022.

Credit:

Omar Marques/The World

Erbacci said that when it comes to these demolitions, the Polish government is missing an opportunity.

“They’re thinking with their hearts instead of their minds,” Erbacci said.

“It’s one thing to just follow whatever your heart is telling you, but if [the government] would think with a bit more logic, I think they’d find the answer would be to preserve what happened rather than destroy history.”

Keeping reminders of the darker side of history — that isn’t easy. But a bulldozer can’t erase the past, Erbacci said.

So, why not confront it?

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