15 Mar 22 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
Vasyl Symonenko (1935-1963), a Ukrainian dissident poet, died after a brutal attack by the Soviet police in Smila, Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. His death was likely connected to his interest in the mass graves at Bykivnia forest outside Kyiv, where the Soviet regime buried tens of thousands of its victims. His poem To A Kurdish Brother can be read as a call to his Ukrainian compatriots to rise against the Soviet regime. The Soviets had committed genocide against Ukrainians during the 1930s, exterminating millions of them during the Holodomor, a forced famine accompanied by mass executions. In the post war period the regime was slowly choking the remains of Ukrainian identity under the guise of “internationalism” by assimilating Ukraine’s people into Russian culture. Putin’s war is the Russian empire’s final effort to destroy Ukrainian identity, but it relates directly to hundreds of years of oppression.
To A Kurdish Brother
by Vasyl Symonenko
Fight… and overcome! Taras Shevchenko
The mountains cry, drenched in blood,
The battered stars fall down:
The fragrant valleys gouged and wounded,
Where chauvinism’s hunger tears in.
Oh, Kurd, conserve your ammo,
But don’t spare the lives of murderers.
Fall as a whirlwind of blood now
On these pillaging lawless bastards.
.
Only talk to them with bullets true:
They did not come just to take all you own,
But for your name and language too
And leave your son an orphan.
The oppressor will “rule” while you haul the cart
So you cannot consent to live with them
Drinking the blood of oppressed peoples they grow fat
For chauvinism is our most savage foe.
He will do anything, so that you submit,
He has betrothed treachery with shame,
Oh, Kurd, conserve each bullet,
For without them you won’t save your kin.
Do not lull to sleep the power of your hate,
Until the last chauvinist on the planet falls,
Into their open grave, only then take
Tenderness as your motto, however it calls.
—
Lina Kostenko was born into a family of teachers on 19 March 1930 in Rzhyshchiv, Ukraine. According to this poem, she wrote her first poem on the walls of a dug-out in World War II. It’s unlikely that this is poetic licence. Kostenko is a poet who is both highly literary, mixing references to Shakespeare and Gogol, but also very honest and accessible. That first poem written as shells fell around her has not survived so what we have instead is a poem about writing a poem. It is a powerful piece that speaks to the plight of children in war. She is currently seeing her country being invaded and shelled by another brutal dictator who, like Hitler and Stalin, wants to destroy the Ukrainian nation. Putin is committing war crimes and has displaced hundreds of thousands of refugees.
My first poem was written in a dug out
On a wall loosened by explosions
When stars were lost in the horoscope:
Though my childhood was not slain by war.
The fire poured its lava,
Stood in the grey craters of orchards,
Our path choked by water
In deranged barrages with flames
The world once bright now dark
That burning night illuminated to its depth
The dug out like a submarine
In a sea of smoke, fear and flame.
There is no longer rabbit or wolf there
Just a world of blood, carbonised star!
I wrote almost in shrapnel
Block capitals from the child’s primer.
I would still play in the dark and in classes
I flew on the wings of book covers in stories
And wrote poems about landmines
Having already seen death so close.
The pain of first unchildish impressions
What trace left on the heart
Verses do not say what I cannot speak
Have they not left mute the spirit?
The spirit in words is the sea in a periscope
And its memory, light refracted from my temple
My first poem, was written in a dug out
Simply imprinted on the soil.
Both poems translated from the Ukrainian by Stephen Komarnyckyj
14 Mar 22 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
It was never easy for hromadske. The independent Ukraine broadcaster was set up in 2013 during the dark days of Viktor Yanukovich, the pro-Russian President of Ukraine. Founded originally as an independent TV station, hromadske (public, in Ukrainian), prided itself on its freedom from control by oligarchs or the state even after Yanukovych was forced to flee by the “Maidan” protests of 2014.
Over the years journalists at the station had adapted to shifts in the media landscape and by the time of the Russian invasion hromadske was streaming topical videos on You Tube and Facebook with special reports every Tuesday and Thursday.
“From January 2022 we changed our model and had no broadcasts, only irregular live streams on the spot from what we considered to be major events,” producer Kostan Nechyporenko tells Index on Censorship. These included the treason trial of former President Petro Poroshenko and major demonstrations.
“After 24 February things changed dramatically,” says Kostan. “It was tense in the first few days and people moved out of Kyiv. We had a backup plan in case of invasion.” The station moved its studio from the centre of Ukraine, close to the country’s parliament building, to a temporary base in Vynittsia, halfway between the capital and the Moldovan border.
“We left a lot of our gear,” says Kostan. We took our most important things. We had to take care of the website as a priority.” The producer moved with his family to the countryside outside Kyiv but plans to return to the office for more equipment this week. Meanwhile, he organises logistics for hromadske crews still reporting all over the country. The film making capacity of hromadske was initially reduced, but the team took the opportunity to revive broadcasts and there is now an hour-long programme every evening at 6.30pm.
The whole mission of hromadske has now changed. “Only the video production had some problems in the early days of the war. The website and social media were working overtime and much more intensely than before. After the first five or six days the situation changed with video production too. Now we produce two to three videos a day, though they might be made in a rush. And because of the war, we’re back to digital broadcasting, though it’s of poorer quality and from a makeshift studio.”
Kostan has no doubt hromadske journalists are at mortal risk from the Russian forces. At the beginning of the war, one of his colleagues, whose must remain anonymous for security reasons, was already in the Donbas region in the east of the country to report on the shelling of Shchastia in the Luhansk region. The reporter remained there when the war started and reported from the front, but had serious problems getting out.
“Our journalist found a car and went to the front line again in the Zaporizhzhia region,” Kostan continues. “The car got shot by a Russian tank so was abandoned. The Russians took a laptop, camera and personal belongings.” Thankfully, the reporter was able to hide in an abandoned house and contact her colleagues at hromadske the next morning.
A second correspondent narrowly escaped from Irpin, on the northwest edge of Irpin, where New York Times journalist Brent Renaud was killed.
The hromadske project was founded during a flowering of independent media in Ukraine and fiercely protected its freedom from the influence of oligarchs and government. The independent values remain more important than ever as it continues to report from Ukraine under siege.
11 Mar 22 | Opinion, Russia, Ruth's blog, Ukraine
Protests against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/PA Images
I had planned to write this week on International Women’s Day. I wanted to feature the female war journalists who are on the frontline as the artillery falls in Ukraine. The brave protesters in Russia who have made their views on the war clear, in spite of the fear of detention. The Russian female scientists who added their names to a joint letter in the academic periodical Trinity Option – causing the publication to be blocked by the Russian state censor. I wanted to write of the amazing women in Myanmar and Hong Kong and Afghanistan and Belarus who keep the dream of democracy alive.
Thankfully these brave women are still fighting the good fight. Inspiring us every day.
And as important as their stories are – and we will keep covering them at Index both in the magazine and on our website, it’s the faces on our media which are dominating my thoughts.
I feel shell-shocked, unable to turn off the news, unable to look away from the devastation being wrought by the Russian military on innocent civilians. Of course, we only know what is happening in Ukraine because we are lucky enough to have independent journalism and media plurality. And as much as I keep holding onto that – it’s the images of the shelled hospital in Mariupol, the pregnant women stumbling from the wreckage, the children sobbing as they looked for help, that I cannot move on from.
War is ugly and the innocent are always caught up in the horror. This has been true since the beginning of time. But there are some images we never thought we would see again on the streets of Europe. Children dying of starvation, residential areas targeted, Holocaust survivors once again exposed to war and fleeing their homes. War crimes happening less than 1,750 miles from where I type.
For those of us who have followed closely the war in Syria, none of this should come as a surprise. And it doesn’t but that does not make the realities on our screens any easier. Russian misinformation, propaganda and lies is adding insult to injury – I won’t share their appalling statements on the events in Mariupol, as their lies need no audience but never have I been more grateful for a free press and to live in a democratic society.
So, as we mark International Women’s Day this week my heart is with the people of Ukraine. I am inspired by their collective bravery in the face of Putin’s tyranny and violence. I grieve with them as they face the reality of war and I stand with them against the lies and deceit of the Russian Federation.
11 Mar 22 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
As Putin continues his bloody invasion of Ukraine, the rest of the world continues to look for signs of an uprising in Russia that might provide a possible exit strategy without risking World War III.
In a country that has cracked down on protest ever since Index was founded in 1972, it can be hard to tell the real scale of opposition to the war.
What we do know, thanks to human rights group OVD-info, is that some 14,000 people from 140 cities have been detained by the authorities so far for exercising their right to object to the actions in Ukraine. On 6 March alone, 5,000 protesters were detained, including 113 juveniles and 13 journalists. Children as young as seven were detained for laying flowers at Moscow’s Ukrainian Embassy.
Arrests are often violent, with protesters beaten with batons and shot with stun guns. If convicted of breaking the harsh rules on protests, they face fines of up to 300,000 roubles (around £2,000 at the current exchange rate) and detention for up to 30 days.
One of Putin’s most vocal critics – the jailed opposition politician leader Alexey Navalny – has also been publicising the work of his supporters in taking the temperature of public opinion in Russia. Navalny is currently being held in a penal colony for three and a half years after being found guilty of a charge of embezzlement. A new court case started in mid-February in which prosecutors have accused him of stealing more than 350 million roubles in donations from non-governmental organisations.
On 8 March, Navalny (actually his lawyers and supporters outside prison, presumably with his blessing) tweeted a thread sharing the results of four opinion polls taken between 25 February and 3 March in Moscow, each including 700 participants.
Navalny said in his tweets, “Whether Russians actually support the hideous war that Putin has waged against Ukraine is a matter of utmost political importance. The answer to this question will largely define Russia’s place in the history of the 21st century.
“It’s one thing if Putin killed Ukrainian civilians and destroyed life-critical infrastructure with full approval from the Russian citizens. However, it’s a whole different story if Putin’s bloody venture is not supported by the society.”
The polls showed that Muscovites view of the role of Russia in the conflict rapidly shifted, with 53% by the end of the polling saying Russia had taken on the role of aggressor in the conflict against 28% who felt Russia was a liberator and 12% who saw them as a peace-maker.
In the same period, the number of people who felt Russia was the guilty party more than doubled from 14% to 36%,.
By the end of the four polls, 60% of those surveyed felt there would be a catastrophic collapse of the Russian economy as a result of the invasion.
By 3 March, some 79% of those asked said the conflicting parties should immediately cease all military operations and engage in peace talks.
Commenting on the findings, Navalny tweeted: “The nature of these changes is plain and unambiguous: people rapidly begin to realise who is responsible for initiating the conflict, as well as the war’s true objectives and possible outcomes. Undoubtedly, the Kremlin can see these dynamics as well, hence the nervousness, the desperate attempts to end the war campaign as soon as possible.”
He added: “The anti-war momentum will keep growing across the society, so the anti-war protests should not be halted under any circumstances.”
In a thread a few days earlier, Navalny had dubbed Putin an “obviously insane czar” and added: “Putin is not Russia. If there is anything in Russia right now that you can be most proud of, it is those… people who were detained because – without any call – they took to the streets with placards saying ‘No War’”.
“We must, gritting our teeth and overcoming fear, come out and demand an end to the war. Each arrested person must be replaced by two newcomers. If in order to stop the war we have to fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves, we will fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves.
He concluded: “Everything has a price, and now, in the spring of 2022, we must pay this price. There’s no one to do it for us. Let’s not ‘be against the war’. Let’s fight against the war.”
Others would have you believe that Putin has wide support for his actions. The state-controlled pollster VCIOM said that Putin’s confidence rating among the public had grown from 73% to 7.4% between 4 and 11 March.
A 5 March poll by the organisation found that 71% of Russians support the decision to conduct what they call the “special military operation” in Ukraine with 46% of Russians believing the operation “aims to protect Russia and prevent the deployment of NATO military bases on the territory of Ukraine”.
