Ukrainian Opera star killed in latest attack on war-torn Sumy region
The Sumy region, which borders Russia, has experienced increased conflict recently, with Russia advancing further into the area last week. This escalation has included intense frontline battles and continuous missile and drone attacks, posing a threat to the regional capital.
The Odesa National Opera shared the news on Facebook statement, with a statement which reads: "The whole world knew the voice of Vladislav Vikentiiovych, but his heart belonged to Ukraine.
'Even in the darkest times, he did not stay aside - he helped, volunteered, supported." The opera added: "The Odesa National Opera has been orphaned."
It was not immediately clear how Gorai died. Reuters could not independently verify the report.
Gorai was designated in 2013 as an Honoured Artist of Ukraine thanks to his contributions to music.
On its website, the opera says Gorai has worked with the Odesa theatre since 1993, after graduating in 1988 from the music faculty of the Vinnytsia State Pedagogical Institute.
He participated in international opera projects in cities such as Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Lyon, Strasbourg and Zurich.
Among the international music houses with which he worked were Madrid's Teatro Monumental and Romania's State Opera and Ballet Theater. He toured Britain, Canada, Italy and the United States, among other countries.
, according to pro-Ukrainian open-source maps.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's drone attack temporarily halted production at an electronics company in Russia 's Volga river region of Chuvashia after two drones fell on the plant's territory, the head of the region said.
Earlier, Donald Trump's administration redirected at least 20,000 anti-drone missiles originally designated for Ukraine to American forces in the Middle East, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Ukraine was hoping to receive the missiles from the US to help counter relentless Russian drone attacks, which include swarms of Iranian-designed Shahed-type drones, Mr Zelensky said.
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The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Kept fighting despite the odds': the Russian journalists who risked everything to report the truth
In the fall of 2021, the director Julia Loktev traveled from her Brooklyn home to Moscow, with the intent to film some friends under pressure. That summer, the Russian government had cracked down on the remaining independent media in the country, designating outlets and journalists it found irksome as 'foreign agents'. Loktev, who moved to the US from the Soviet Union at age nine, had several journalist friends now required to submit detailed financial reports to the government and affix an all-caps disclaimer to any output, be it an article or an Instagram post of their cat, declaring it the work of a foreign agent. Loktev began shadowing her friend Anna Nemzer, a host on the country's only remaining independent news channel, TV Rain (Dozhd, in Russian), which was on the growing list of 'foreign agents' meant to chill any press critical of Vladimir Putin's regime. She was particularly interested in Sonya Groysman and Olga Churakova, two female journalists in their 20s who, with youthful gusto, started the podcast Hi, You're a Foreign Agent to document how their new notoriety affected their lives. 'I thought I was making a film about these young journalists who were dealing with this. I thought it was going to be called The Lives of Foreign Agents,' Loktev recalled recently. 'I thought I was making a film about people trying to figure out how you live in a country where you oppose the government. How long can you keep working? How do you keep fighting when you live under a regime you oppose?' Instead, Loktev's film, My Undesirable Friends: Part One – Last Air in Moscow, became a record of Russian independent media's last gasps under Putin, a time capsule of a world that no longer exists. Loktev tells us so in the opening minutes of this astonishing five-hour film (now playing in theaters, with a break between chapters 1-3 and 4-5): 'The world you are about to see no longer exists,' she says over footage of bright storefronts in Moscow. 'None of us knew what was about to happen.' In February 2022, four months after Loktev started filming, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a shock even to the clear-eyed journalists who had reported on Putin's mobilization of troops in the days and weeks prior. Within a week, much of the country's civil society and independent press fled. The first chapter of My Undesirable Friends, filmed in October 2021, ends with a chilling note: every person you just saw now lives in exile. Much of My Undesirable Friends thus plays out like a thriller, with characters trying to figure out their next move with what we know to be limited time. On some level, they know it, too, even if they do not yet believe it. 'A year from now, we'll remember October 2021 as Eden,' Groysman tells Loktev in the first chapter. 'In a year, half your characters won't be in Russia, and someone will certainly end up in jail.' Most of the independent journalists Loktev followed are young women just old enough to remember a time when Russian society was freer, and are loth to let it go without a fight. At one point, Groysman shows the camera a bunch of magazines that she kept from 2012, her senior year of high school, that support LGBTQ+ rights or bolster the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny or encourage dissent, all unimaginable a decade later. Groysman and Churakova form part of a tight core of journalists, across a handful of remaining outlets, who anchor the film with disarming warmth and humor; in one scene, as Loktev films Groysman folding laundry at her unsettled Moscow apartment, the latter jokingly chastises: 'An American journalist is digging through Russian dirty laundry!' The two podcast hosts overlap with Ksenia Mironova, a fellow journalist whose fiance, Ivan Safronov, was indefinitely jailed on trumped-up charges after he investigated Russian defense contracts. (Safronov was sentenced to 22 years in prison in September 2022, a sham verdict meant to threaten journalists.) Mironova calmly recounts how the authorities upended their apartment in the raid that took Safronov away – a terrifying possibility within a dark range of common intimidation tactics. 'Some of our characters have been searched, some of their places were bugged,' said Loktev. 'They were constantly afraid of when they would have to leave, or when they would have to stop working or worse, when they would be arrested.' Nevertheless, they keep working. Mironova keeps reporting, even as she breaks when sending care packages to Safronov that will almost certainly never reach him. So do Irina Dolinina and Alesya Marokhovskaya, even after their studio is bugged and they lose their rare trial contesting the foreign agents label. So does Elena Kostyuchenko, an exceptionally daring reporter for the storied investigative outlet Novaya Gazeta, even after several of her colleagues have been killed; at the outset of the invasion, she manages to slip into Ukraine. So does Nemzer, the host of a short-lived TV Rain program called Who's Got the Power? on civil society leaders, even as the noose tightens on free speech in the country. Just before going on air with her university thesis adviser to talk about the detention of her parents' friend, an academic also designated a 'foreign agent', Nemzer reflects on the surreality of the collapse in real time: 'It's this constant attempt, on one hand, not to panic or become hysterical – everything is OK, everything is OK. On the other hand, you can't allow yourself to get used to this.' Again and again, each journalist tries to articulate the strange cognitive dissonance of life going on as the society you knew crumbles. There are several scenes of warm camaraderie – birthday parties, group dinners, New Year's wishes for a better year in 2022 that now feel haunted. Frank conversation of daunting opposition and unbelievable risks are mixed with references to Harry Potter – Putin makes an easy comparison to Voldemort – and Instagram trends. What is an acute crisis to independent journalists seems minor to many other Russians – Michelin-star restaurants open in Moscow, cafes are full. Several have relatives who are not as critical of the regime; Marokhovskaya must hide her girlfriend from her conservative family. As a sociologist tells Groysman: 'This feeling that we're in a state of war, and everyone around us is not, is typical for totalitarian regimes.' 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The dissonance coursing through Loktev's film – so much calm, amid so much catastrophe – is 'how life looks when this happens. That is how life looks under an authoritarian regime. It's just not how we imagine it.' For Loktev's subjects, life and work are inextricable; both cratered abruptly after the state shut down TV Rain and other outlets, threatening criminal penalties. As captured in the final chapter, most fled that night, hopping on the next available flight – to Istanbul, to Tbilisi, to Mongolia – with whatever they could pack in two hours. Loktev stayed one extra day, to make sure her footage uploaded to the cloud, in case her drives were confiscated. She is at work on Part Two, titled Exile, which picks up two days after the mass exodus, as her subjects continue to work from the US and Europe, trying to report honestly on Russia for Russian audiences. In the third chapter, in late December 2021, Nemzer acknowledges how futile that task could be, even before the disastrous invasion. In a commemorative year-end video for TV Rain, she recalls a year spent asking human rights activists why they keep working when they're persecuted; asking lawyers why they keep going to court when it's rigged; asking journalists why they keep investigating when exposure changes nothing. The answer, always, was to create a record of truth. 'Sometimes I ask myself, 'God, what am I doing?'' she says. 'I have one answer. If all these people are creating a record, then I'm going to try too.' My Undesirable Friends stands as its own staggering record, of people 'who kept fighting despite the odds, who were continuing to speak the truth', said Loktev. 'They kept doing this even as they were named foreign agents, even as they risked arrest. They just kept doing it.' My Undesirable Friends will show at Film Forum in New York City from 15 August with a UK date to be announced This article was amended on 15 August 2025. A previous version erroneously stated that Ivan Safronov was sentenced to 24 years in prison. He was sentenced to 22 years.
The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
Piers Morgan quickly backtracks after ‘mistakenly' posting photo of Trump wearing kneepads ahead of Putin summit
Piers Morgan said he thought a picture of Donald Trump wearing kneepads was a real image of the president preparing for his 'high stakes' summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that he deleted the photo when he realized it was fake. The British tabloid host went on to claim that the satirical pic of Trump merely came across his social media feed and he immediately reposted it alongside well-wishes to Trump. Needless to say, Morgan faced a flood of mockery for posting the mocked-up photo of the president, something he acknowledged after deleting the image. Hours before Trump actually touched down in Alaska for the summit with Putin, which is part of an attempt by the president to secure a ceasefire agreement in the bloody Ukraine-Russia war, Morgan – who has enjoyed a long (and fraught) friendship with Trump – posted an altered picture of the president exiting Air Force One. Apparently believing this was a live photo and that the president had just landed in Anchorage, the Piers Morgan Uncensored host delivered a message of hope ahead of Trump's meeting with Putin. 'As President [Donald Trump] lands in Alaska, I wish him the very best of luck in trying to secure an end to the horrendous war in Ukraine,' Morgan tweeted. 'It's refreshing to see a U.S. president who genuinely prefers peace to war.' With the picture showing a waving Trump donning bright red kneepads, it didn't take long for Morgan to get inundated with comments from other users on X asking him if he was aware that he had shared a meme that was mocking the president. 'Did you intentionally post a photo with Trump wearing knee pads or are [you] just an idiot? Evil or idiot? Which is it?' one poster pressed Morgan, prompting the presenter to chalk it up his tweet to ignorance. 'No.. I didn't see the kneepads on that pic, so just deleted and reposted with a different pic!' Morgan replied. In response to journalist Tara Palmeri wondering what had happened because the post was 'quickly deleted,' Morgan gave a more detailed explanation. 'I saw the pic on my feed and mistakenly believed it was a live one, and didn't spot the mocked up kneepads,' he replied to Palmeri. 'I couldn't understand why so many people were laughing and raging about it. Then I realized, deleted it and reposted with another pic. My words remained the same.' It is more than a bit ironic that Morgan fell for an obviously fake photo when it was just a week ago that he trolled NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo for getting duped by a blatantly obvious deepfake video of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) purportedly delivering a House floor speech denouncing the Sydney Sweeney 'good jeans' ad. 'Oh dear @ChrisCuomo - perhaps spend less time b*tching about me and more time trying to spot obvious fakes,' Morgan tweeted at Cuomo alongside several laughing emojis. 'You got clip i didnt pay attn I wont block you for saying how easy that is, my yappy friend?' Cuomo responded at the time.
The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
Bayreuth's 2025 production of Wagner's 'Meistersinger' features a Technicolor look — and a twist
In Wagner 's home theater, a twist has been added to the classic opera 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.' Instead of Walther joining the guild of master singers and preparing to marry Eva after he wins the song contest, in Bayeuth's new version she grabs the medal out of the young knight's hands, returns it to her father, then leads her future husband offstage for a future forsaking the traditions of their family and city. 'No thank you. Let's go!' explained soprano Christian Nilsson, who is singing Eva in her role debut. 'She is a strong girl.' Matthias Davids' production runs through Aug. 22, emphasizing entertainment with a Hollywood Technicolor look highlighted by an upside-down inflatable cow and a tiny St. Catherine's Church atop 34 steep steps. Cow image dominates set Nilsson's Eva arrives for the Feast of St. John. encased in flowers with additional blossoms in her headdress, carried atop horizontal poles by four men. 'We were always referring to Eva as the prize cow. We said she is sold like a prize cow,' said Davids, a 63-year-old German director known for his work in theater musicals. That idea led to the huge heifer, manufactured by a company that makes inflatables and covered with flame retardant coating, according to set designer Andrew Edwards. Sixtus Beckmesser, the petulant town clerk who loses the song contest to Walther, pulls the plug on the cow, which darkens and sags, during the final oration defending the imperative of German art by the cobbler Hans Sachs. While Sachs runs to restore the connection — reinflating the bovine balloon and restoring light — the young lovers reject him and what he stands for. Townspeople, many wearing conical red caps that give them elf-like looks, shrug their shoulders at the final notes as Sachs and Beckmesser argue upstage. Wagner's happy ending not always kept When 'Meistersinger' premiered in 1868, Wagner presented a happy ending in which Walther and Eva joined together and he is admitted to guild. Davids' ending is less jarring than Kasper Holten's 2017 Covent Garden staging, set in a men's club where Eva is horrified Walther would want to join the misogynistic Meistersingers and runs away in tears. 'I saw some productions and I always found them kind of heavy and meaningful,' Davids said. He read Wagner's letters about his desire to produce a comedy to earn money and decided to search for lightness and humor while realizing comedy can't constantly sustain over four hours. Details were worked out during rehearsals, with Davids inspired by the chemistry of Nilsson and tenor Michael Spyres, who also was making his debut as Walther. Nilsson maintains a beatific beam during Walther's prize song. 'I really felt like in this production Eva and Walther truly had a fun connection — fun, young, loving connection — and I just leaned into that and listened to Spyres' beautiful tenor,' Nilsson said. Bringing levity, and an Angela Merkel look-alike, to the stage Davids' contrast was sharp from Barrie Kosky's 2017 production, set partly in Wagner's home of Wahnfried and the Nuremberg trials courtroom, with Walther and Sachs portrayed as Wagner of various ages. This time Georg Zeppenfeld was a grandfatherly Sachs in an argyle button through sweater vest. Beckmesser, played fussily but without histrionics by Michael Nagy, had a shimmering silver sweater below a cream Trachten jacket, mirror sunglasses and lute transformed to resemble a heart-shaped electric guitar outlined by pink light that gave him an Elvis Presley look. Jongmin Park, an imposing Pogner as Eva's father, was attired in a more flowing robe. Eva wore a traditional dirndl and Walther, an upstart, a punkish T-shirt. Susanne Hubrich costumed various townspeople to resemble German entertainer Thomas Gottschalk, comedian Loriot, fans of the soccer club Kickers Offenbach and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. 'Ms. Merkel is a Wagner fan and attends the Bayreuth Festival almost every year,' Hubrich said. 'I spoke with her after opening night. She was amused.' Edwards, the set designer, had orange and yellow spears of light that resemble fairgrounds and included architectural details from the Bayreuth auditorium such as circular lamps in sets of three in the church and seats like the ones the audience was viewing from. Conductor Daniele Gatti, returning to Bayreuth for the first time since 2011, and the cast were rewarded with a positive reception from a spectators known to make displeasure known after more provocative performances. 'Just looking around the audience, there was a lot more smiles on people's faces at the end than normally you see at the end of Wagner productions,' Nilsson said.
