Latest news with #Amelina
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russia killed Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina — but not her words or quest for justice
Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina never got to finish writing her book 'Looking at Women, Looking at War.' After she was killed in a Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk Oblast in 2023, it fell upon her closest friends and colleagues to do what they could to make sure it would still be published. The book, which Amelina dubbed 'a war and justice diary,' is partly a deeply personal chronicle of how Russia's war led her to set aside her career as one of Ukraine's most successful young writers to become a war crimes researcher. Amelina's choice was driven by what she describes as the need to do her own part to hold Russian soldiers accountable for the horrors inflicted upon her fellow countrymen and women. 'I see the tremendous efforts you and your colleagues make to give justice a chance,' Amelina writes to human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Oleksandra Matviichuk, one of the heroines of the book. 'Yet despite all our efforts, we still might lose. And if we lose, I want at least to tell the story of our pursuit of justice.' The work she takes on is important but there is an undeniable psychological toll that comes with it. At the start of the full-scale war, she promises her son, who she had already brought to safety in Poland, that she would avoid going to Kyiv — but she goes anyway. 'You are a children's writer, so you must find a way to explain why I lied. Will you?' she recounts asking her friend, fellow Ukrainian author Kateryna Mikhalitsyna. 'Looking at Women, Looking at War' is not merely a record of her own personal experience as a war crimes researcher, though — it is a testament to the resilience of a number of Ukrainian women whose lives have been forever changed by Russia's war. Writing about Amelina is difficult. For the first time in one of my book reviews, I find myself stepping beyond objectivity — I must let the personal "I" intervene. I knew Amelina — our friendship was still in its early stages, and though we were not that close, she made an impression on me that will last for a lifetime. In 2022, we traveled together with three other Ukrainian authors to an international author symposium in Poland, in the village of Krasnogruda, near the Lithuanian and Belarusian borders. It was my first time speaking about the war to an international audience as a representative of Ukraine, and emotion overwhelmed me — I burst into a fit of tears. Sitting beside me, Amelina reached under the table, placed a gentle hand on my knee, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and found the strength to go on. Reading 'Looking at Women, Looking at War,' one can easily picture her doing the same with so many of the people she describes meeting in the book — an author with a veritable talent is one that is a vessel for empathy, after all. The testimonies of survivors of Russian occupation are some of the most difficult passages to read. There's a story of the Zolotar family and what they lived through in Velyka Oleksandrivka in the formerly-occupied part of Kherson Oblast. Searching for her detained husband, Viktoria Zolotar is met with a brutal warning from a Russian soldier: 'If you come here again, we'll shoot you in the head — and believe me, we won't miss.' With no answers and mounting fear, she has no choice but to evacuate her children to safety. Her husband is eventually released — but only after enduring relentless beatings. Just as she learns he was alive, a chilling call comes from his stolen phone. An accented Russian voice claims they have beheaded him. In the occupied territories, terror in all its forms is unrelenting. Amelina also reflects in 'Looking at Women, Looking at War' on the fate of Liubov Panchenko, the 84-year-old Ukrainian artist who starved to death during Russia's occupation of Bucha in Kyiv Oblast. A member of the Sixtiers movement, Panchenko was part of a generation for whom art and resistance were inextricable — they wielded their creativity as both expression and defiance, even under the weight of Soviet repression. Having survived Soviet oppression, she was ultimately killed by its latest reincarnation. The unavoidable flaw of 'Looking at Women, Looking at War' is that the manuscript remains incomplete. Additionally, there are stories of Ukrainian women who have poured everything they have into the fight against Russia — women who, like Amelina, have found new purpose during wartime, new roles, and new limits to push beyond. Human rights lawyer Kateryna Rashevska meticulously scours social media and Russian state-controlled media, gathering evidence on Maria Lvova-Belova — the so-called Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights — who has orchestrated the abduction of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children. Rashevska's relentless investigation will play a crucial role in the International Criminal Court's decision to issue a warrant for Lvova-Belova's arrest. Amelina also profiles her mentor in the field of war crimes research, a woman who goes by the call sign 'Casanova,' who initially stepped away from the work she began with the organization Truth Hounds after Russia's 2014 invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, hoping at last to settle down and build her dream home. But the full-scale invasion upends those plans, pulling her back into the painstaking, necessary task of documenting Russian war crimes once more. The unavoidable flaw of 'Looking at Women, Looking at War' is that the manuscript remains incomplete. The editors undertook the monumental task of preparing the manuscript for publication, striving to interfere as little as possible with the author's voice. Some fragments call for context or even revision — but the editors prioritized authenticity. 'We are cognizant that in certain places it was difficult for the reader to read the unfinished text in the form of notes or fieldwork reports,' the editors write. 'We hope that as you hold this document in your hands, you now understand the meaning of the empty pages in it.' Occasionally, the notes from unfinished chapters read like abstract and forlorn free-verse poetry, their fragmented form echoing the weight of thought in wartime. Each broken line becomes a powerful reflection of the mind's struggle to make sense of a beautiful world torn apart by war: 'Two Kalashnikov bullets in my hand, the one that went through Stanislav's leg and a berry pie from Ivanivka / we look for a man who just lost his wife; he might be a witness in a case of shooting at a civilian / cherry pie / kids playing / ringtone / two bullets.' In its unfinishedness, 'Looking at Women, Looking at War' ultimately mirrors the lives of countless Ukrainians, whose potential were tragically cut short by Russia's ongoing war of aggression. The contributions of these individuals to Ukraine remain irreparably unrealized. Those who survive are compelled to recognize and honor what they achieved in the brief span of their lives, acknowledging the immense loss not only to Ukraine but to the broader human experience. Hi, this is Kate Tsurkan, thanks for reading this article. There is an ever-increasing amount of books about or related to Ukraine available to English-language readers, and I hope my recommendations prove useful when it comes to your next trip to the bookstore. Ukrainian culture has taken on an even more important meaning during wartime, so if you like reading about this sort of thing, Read also: Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are locked in Russian prisons — will US peace talks leave them behind? We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Japan Times
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Contemplating victory and defeat in Ukraine
At one point in her unfinished, posthumously published memoir, the Ukrainian novelist Victoria Amelina reflects on how she'd take a break from writing. She usually worked in an internal corridor of her Kyiv apartment, the safest place in her home during the war. "Sometimes when an air raid alarm sounds I go to the balcony and watch air defense rockets rise into black sky over the skyline,' she wrote. "I just don't fear death anymore.' The book — "Looking at Women Looking at War" — is about bravery but also unforeseen and perhaps unwelcome transformations wrought on individual human beings by the forces of history. It begins with Amelina buying her first gun in the tense days before the Russian assault on Feb. 24, 2022. She stared at the weapon "black and hazardous, on the bed, among all my swimming suits and summer dresses,' which she'd laid out for a vacation. "I've heard that everyone is capable of killing, and those who say they aren't just haven't met the right person.' She added, "An armed stranger entering my country might just be the 'right person.'' Toward the end of the volume, the former organizer of literary festivals weeps for the war dead and those who mourn them. However, she says, "I don't cry and I don't even feel sad' when shown an instructional video on how to attach a grenade to a drone. Colombian writer Hector Abad Faciolince holds a photo in honor of Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Sept. 13, 2023. Amelina died in early July 2023 from injuries sustained in a Russian missile strike in the city of Kramatorsk. | REUTERS Amelina becomes a war crimes researcher and the book is about the women who document with painful precision the ugliness of the conflict. In a poignant preface, Margaret Atwood compares them to the Recording Angel: "the spirit whose job it is to write down the good and bad deeds of humans.' Amelina's literary and investigative lives intersect when she helps recover and publish the buried diary of a disabled poet murdered by Russians. But she becomes a victim herself. On June 27, 2023, she was badly injured when Russian ballistic missiles hit a cafe where she was playing host to visitors from Colombia. She died four days later. There is enough heartbreak in her memoir. It is also inadvertently and achingly anachronistic. Her manuscript — with many finished sections but others in notes, fragments of ideas — was edited during the few months when Ukraine could still be upbeat about its war effort, with a publication not scheduled until February 2025. The mood has shifted to pessimism as Donald Trump betrays Kyiv with kisses for Vladimir Putin on an almost daily basis. Ukrainians and their friends still cling to hope — some are idealistic, others just fueled by anger. The Norman Foster Foundation — set up by the famous British architect — has awarded prizes to young designers from around the world in a competition to conceive new housing for the beleaguered city of Kharkiv. At local shops in Kyiv, patriots can buy inexpensive paintings of rousing moments from the war, including the famous sinking of a Russian naval vessel and the incursion Ukrainian troops made into enemy territory. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has versions of those in his small private bedroom next to his office. He also has another, an imaginary one of the Kremlin in flames. "Each one's about victory,' he recently told Time magazine's Simon Shuster, "That's where I live.' That sentiment is important for the leader of a country beset by enemies. Others, however, must contemplate the terrible possibility of defeat. Amelina was realistic. "Despite all our efforts, we might still lose,' she wrote to Oleksandra Matviichuk, the human rights activist whose Kyiv-based Centre for Civil Liberties was co-recipient of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. "If we lose, I want to at least tell the story of our pursuit of justice.' Will Moscow, if it is indeed victorious, allow those stories to be told? I can imagine Putin looking at the records she and her truth-seekers have gathered and declaring, "The wind can sweep away your words.' That line has been uttered before. Almost 2,500 years ago in Euripides' "The Trojan Women," a messenger from the conquering Greeks uses them to belittle the prophecies of Cassandra, Trojan princess turned prisoner of war. Her vision is of evil days ahead for the victors. The herald snorts in derision. But the audience knows of her myth and its power: No one believes Cassandra, but her predictions always come true. Amelina sensed the foreboding as she sifted through ruin of her country. She recalled being moved by the words "city of stone and steel' — from a song by the Ukrainian rock musician Serhiy Zhadan — written on a wall in the fallen city of Mariupol. Here are more of its lyrics: "Tell us, why did they burn our city down? Tell us they did not mean to do it. Tell us the guilty will be punished, Chaplain. Tell us anything that's not on the news.' "Well, I can only tell you about the losses. Surely a final reckoning awaits the guilty. But it awaits the innocent as well and even those who had nothing to do with this.' The war will leave both winners and losers transformed, likely for the worse, despite all the heroism, despite the sacrifice. From her balcony, as Amelina looked at Ukrainian rockets go after Russian attackers, she thought about raising her son and perhaps joining the military herself if things got worse. She'd described the decision of another friend to tend a garden near Kharkiv to make sure it flourished. "It's a very Ukrainian stubbornness,' Amelina wrote, "growing gardens near the border with Russia is like building a beautiful Pompeii near a volcano.' She then imagined her own funeral — and how it would be a rare time for the women "fighting for justice' to take a break and gather together. Indeed, they would. A ceasefire may come. But there will be no peace. To paraphrase Euripides and Cassandra, the victors may take the land but they will be bringing home the Furies. Howard Chua-Eoan is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion covering culture and business.
Bloomberg
29-03-2025
- Bloomberg
Contemplating Victory and Defeat in Ukraine
At one point in her unfinished, posthumously published memoir, the Ukrainian novelist Victoria Amelina reflects on how she'd take a break from writing. She usually worked in an internal corridor of her Kyiv apartment, the safest place in her home during the war. 'Sometimes when an air raid alarm sounds I go to the balcony and watch air defense rockets rise into black sky over the skyline,' she wrote. 'I just don't fear death anymore.' The book — Looking at Women Looking at War — is about bravery but also unforeseen and perhaps unwelcome transformations wrought on individual human beings by the forces of history. It begins with Amelina buying her first gun in the tense days before the Russian assault on Feb. 24, 2022. She stared at the weapon 'black and hazardous, on the bed, among all my swimming suits and summer dresses,' which she'd laid out for a vacation. 'I've heard that everyone is capable of killing, and those who say they aren't just haven't met the right person.' She added, 'An armed stranger entering my country might just be the 'right person.'' Toward the end of the volume, the former organizer of literary festivals weeps for the war dead and those who mourn them. However, she says, 'I don't cry and I don't even feel sad' when shown an instructional video on how to attach a grenade to a drone.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Commentary: Slain Ukrainian novelist provides a stark contrast to Trump and Putin
Journalism may be the first draft of history, but in wartime, it is also the most dangerous draft of history for reporters on the front lines. On June 27, 2023, in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's missiles, which sometimes seek out the gathering places of journalists, struck a restaurant where award-winning Ukrainian novelist and poet Victoria Amelina was meeting with Colombian journalists covering the war. Amelina was working with human rights group Truth Hounds, which is recording atrocities committed against Ukrainians. Among the 13 dead, including three children, was Amelina, who, when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, left her home of relative safety in Kyiv to become a war crimes researcher. She interviewed witnesses and collected testimonies from Ukrainians bearing the full brunt of the war. She was survived by her husband and son. Amelina predicted her fate and warned that Putin's invading army would target artists and writers to hollow out Ukrainian culture, just as the loss of tens of thousands of men and women fighting and dying in the Russian assault will hollow out a future Ukraine dependent on community leaders, providers of families, business leaders and men and women in the professions and other walks of life. At the time of her death, Amelina was writing a book that would be published posthumously this year, 'Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary.' Based on interviews with women who were also documenting war crimes since the Russian invasion, the front cover has a beautiful photo of 37-year-old Amelina that belies how courageously she approached her work, no matter how dangerous her war-torn surroundings. The only reason Amelina's book survived her death is the dedication of fellow writers — Tetyana Teren, Yaryna Grusha, Sasha Dovzhyk and her husband, Alex Amelin. They edited and completed the book, sharing Amelina's legacy and the power of her written word. In an afterword to the book she will never see, they listed her many contributions to the defense of Ukraine before her death. She worked for a humanitarian warehouse in Lviv, sourced medicines, raised money to buy vehicles and drones for the troops and helped evacuate people and pets from all corners of Ukraine, many of which wound up in her apartment in Lviv. Among the many tributes her colleagues pay her valiant war effort, there is one that screams from the pages of her book. Amelina, they say, was endowed with an extraordinary empathy that enabled her to listen and provide support and become friends with those who shared their accounts of the war. If there was ever a contrast between the sycophantic behavior of President Donald Trump and the bold and courageous Amelina, it centers on empathy. Trump and Vice President JD Vance's display of arrogance and haughtiness in their recent ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office marks them as the ugly Americans of the 21st century, organically incapable of sensing or feeling the pain and suffering of others and incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. Trump berated Zelenskyy, who visited him to secure military aid critical to Ukraine's success against Russian forces, drones and missiles. Trump has responded by cutting off military aid to Ukraine and denying America's intelligence-sharing with Ukraine. Whether Putin has something on Trump he threatens to reveal, or whether Trump is just descending to a manic desire to settle old scores, the result is the same. America is no longer viewed as the beacon of freedom across the globe; it now holds the distinction of having sold out freedom-loving Ukrainians who are fighting and dying at Putin's hand. Behavior such as that shown in Zelenskyy's visit to the Oval Office that day is learned. Trump teaches this crass behavior to his MAGA minions so that many Americans can no longer distinguish true from false, right from wrong, justice from injustice. Trump's servile devotion to Putin becomes the new norm overnight as Republicans cower in support of Trump's new Putin policy. A party that once reinforced allies facing existential threats now remains silent or amplifies Trump's praise for Putin. A party that followed the lead of the late Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, who declared that partisan politics must stop 'at the water's edge' in providing bipartisan support to the Truman Doctrine, NATO and the Marshall Plan, now lies in subservience to the Russian strongman who kills and maims without qualms. Amelina's powerful pen documents Putin's savage attack on Ukrainian innocents. Her courageous work in eastern Ukraine stands in direct contrast to Trump and Putin, who heap praise on each other and ignore the devastation to Ukraine, an ignorance that not even death and injury to women and children can penetrate. Amelina's work of principle and courage must override the din of capitulation emanating from the White House. Glory to Ukraine! ____ Bob Kustra served two terms as Republican lieutenant governor of Illinois and 10 years as a state legislator. He also taught political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Loyola, Roosevelt and Northwestern universities. He is now host of 'Readers Corner' on Boise State Public Radio and a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman. ___
Chicago Tribune
07-03-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Bob Kustra: Slain Ukrainian novelist provides a stark contrast to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin
Journalism may be the first draft of history, but in wartime, it is also the most dangerous draft of history for reporters on the front lines. On June 27, 2023, in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's missiles, which sometimes seek out the gathering places of journalists, struck a restaurant where award-winning Ukrainian novelist and poet Victoria Amelina was meeting with Colombian journalists covering the war. Amelina was working with human rights group Truth Hounds, which is recording atrocities committed against Ukrainians. Among the 13 dead, including three children, was Amelina, who, when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, left her home of relative safety in Kyiv to become a war crimes researcher. She interviewed witnesses and collected testimonies from Ukrainians bearing the full brunt of the war. She was survived by her husband and son. Amelina predicted her fate and warned that Putin's invading army would target artists and writers to hollow out Ukrainian culture, just as the loss of tens of thousands of men and women fighting and dying in the Russian assault will hollow out a future Ukraine dependent on community leaders, providers of families, business leaders and men and women in the professions and other walks of life. At the time of her death, Amelina was writing a book that would be published posthumously this year, 'Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary.' Based on interviews with women who were also documenting war crimes since the Russian invasion, the front cover has a beautiful photo of 37-year-old Amelina that belies how courageously she approached her work, no matter how dangerous her war-torn surroundings. The only reason Amelina's book survived her death is the dedication of fellow writers — Tetyana Teren, Yaryna Grusha, Sasha Dovzhyk and her husband, Alex Amelin. They edited and completed the book, sharing Amelina's legacy and the power of her written word. In an afterword to the book she will never see, they listed her many contributions to the defense of Ukraine before her death. She worked for a humanitarian warehouse in Lviv, sourced medicines, raised money to buy vehicles and drones for the troops and helped evacuate people and pets from all corners of Ukraine, many of which wound up in her apartment in Lviv. Among the many tributes her colleagues pay her valiant war effort, there is one that screams from the pages of her book. Amelina, they say, was endowed with an extraordinary empathy that enabled her to listen and provide support and become friends with those who shared their accounts of the war. If there was ever a contrast between the sycophantic behavior of President Donald Trump and the bold and courageous Amelina, it centers on empathy. Trump and Vice President JD Vance's display of arrogance and haughtiness in their recent ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office marks them as the ugly Americans of the 21st century, organically incapable of sensing or feeling the pain and suffering of others and incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. Trump berated Zelenskyy, who visited him to secure military aid critical to Ukraine's success against Russian forces, drones and missiles. Trump has responded by cutting off military aid to Ukraine and denying America's intelligence-sharing with Ukraine. Whether Putin has something on Trump he threatens to reveal, or whether Trump is just descending to a manic desire to settle old scores, the result is the same. America is no longer viewed as the beacon of freedom across the globe; it now holds the distinction of having sold out freedom-loving Ukrainians who are fighting and dying at Putin's hand. Behavior such as that shown in Zelenskyy's visit to the Oval Office that day is learned. Trump teaches this crass behavior to his MAGA minions so that many Americans can no longer distinguish true from false, right from wrong, justice from injustice. Trump's servile devotion to Putin becomes the new norm overnight as Republicans cower in support of Trump's new Putin policy. A party that once reinforced allies facing existential threats now remains silent or amplifies Trump's praise for Putin. A party that followed the lead of the late Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, who declared that partisan politics must stop 'at the water's edge' in providing bipartisan support to the Truman Doctrine, NATO and the Marshall Plan, now lies in subservience to the Russian strongman who kills and maims without qualms. Amelina's powerful pen documents Putin's savage attack on Ukrainian innocents. Her courageous work in eastern Ukraine stands in direct contrast to Trump and Putin, who heap praise on each other and ignore the devastation to Ukraine, an ignorance that not even death and injury to women and children can penetrate. Amelina's work of principle and courage must override the din of capitulation emanating from the White House. Glory to Ukraine! Bob Kustra served two terms as Republican lieutenant governor of Illinois and 10 years as a state legislator. He also taught political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Loyola, Roosevelt and Northwestern universities. He is now host of 'Readers Corner' on Boise State Public Radio and a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman.
