Mychailo Wynnyckyj, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Valerii Pekar, Taras Prokhasko — April 2-7, 2022

Flash essays from the collection “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity” tell about the insights, experiences, and beliefs of Ukrainians, which ignited their society in 2022, when the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine began.

The Cultural Hub community and curators carefully collected, translated, and illustrated these texts in order to capture the values ​​of Ukrainians — Freedoms, Bravery, Dignity, Responsibility, and Humour. 

A series of publications in partnership with Chytomo introduces this collection to the English-speaking audience. Volume 10 continues to present the series. You can get acquainted with the previous collection here.

Myсhailo Wynnyckyj: Thoughts from Kyiv. April 2

Locusts. If we Ukrainians can be likened to “bees” protecting our hive — each with his/her own responsibilities, but with a singular ideal that unites and informally coordinates our activities — then the russians are nothing but a swarm of locusts.

During the past two days, Ukrainian forces have liberated towns and villages to the northwest of Kyiv: Irpin, Bucha, Hostomel, Ivankiv, Makariv and many others. The retreating russian forces have left behind destroyed and looted houses. Videos from Bucha show dead bodies of civilians on the streets with their hands tied behind their backs — apparently summarily executed. Trashed houses are mined and boobytrapped with “gifts,” just waiting for their civilian owners to return.

A co-worker of mine was trapped in a russian occupied a village near Borodyanka since February 26. During the first week of occupation she was still able to call or message us, but we lost contact in early March. Today she let us know that she is alive! She recounted how the Yanukovych-era “elders” of her village (in power prior to 2014) were the first to cooperate with the occupying forces. The collaborators left quickly together with the retreating russians. If they hadn’t the locals would have killed them with their bare hands as soon as they could have.

The retreating russians are taking everything. Their transport trucks are packed with refrigerators, television sets, ovens, clothing, shoes and slippers, cosmetics — everything that can be looted from the homes they had occupied for the past month. One photo of a russian truck disabled by the advancing Ukrainian forces shows two wheels from passenger cars strapped on to the front grill together with a shovel, hoe and rake. Apparently gardening instruments are in short supply in russia.

It would seem the retreating russians are steeling everything they can get their hands on.

Intercepted telephone conversations between russian soldiers and their wives and girlfriends back home indicate that the invaders’ looting is not spontaneous. The women are heard encouraging their men to bring back as much plunder as possible: the request for a perfume sample box and jewelry (“especially gold crosses and diamond earrings”) particularly sticks in my mind.

In the towns recently liberated by Ukrainian forces, the locals are ecstatic. Elderly ladies who remember World War II recall the Nazis as civilized in comparison with the russians. The Germans may have considered Ukrainians “untermensch” (lower people) but they respected their humanity and their possessions. The russians simply swarmed in and pillaged.

In the film “Independence Day,” the character President Whitmore (played by Bill Pullman) described the invading aliens appropriately: “They’re like locusts. They’re moving from planet to planet… their whole civilization. After they’ve consumed every natural resource they move on… and we’re next.”

We’re next!

At the beginning of this war I thought it inappropriate to refer to the russian invaders as the “Horde” (after-all, the historical reference may be considered somewhat racist). Now I understand that this is a more than appropriate designation: they came to destroy; they raped, pillaged and murdered, and when forced to retreat they have left nothing but devastation, debris and destruction. This is not an army. These are marauders and bandits who have no sense of military honor, no morals, no scruples. They are locusts.

And don’t tell me it’s their regime; that simple russians are not to blame for this! This is not putin’s war. This is russia’s war! Their soldiers came to feed themselves, to conquer for the purpose of enslavement, to destroy for the perverse pleasure of mayhem. There can be no excuse for this barbarism.

Apparently when the war began, the russians planned to take Kyiv in 3 days. If so, why did their ministry of defense purchase 45 000 body bags prior to the invasion? Why did the russian forces advance with mobile crematoria? If the frontline troops were told to pack dress uniforms for their parade through central Kyiv, why would their commanders equip themselves for large numbers of dead?

Because they planned mass murder! They planned to exterminate all Ukrainian opposition in the same way as the soviets did many times before. They planned to enslave, kill, plunder… Their government even published instructions on how to dig mass graves (more on this from Sergej Sumlenny).

For the moment, the valiant Ukrainian Armed Forces have pushed the russians away from the outskirts of Kyiv. Supposedly, they will now concentrate their swarm on Kharkiv and the Donbas. Mariupol is already 90% destroyed, and many of its citizens have been forcibly deported to russia’s interior. I fear for Kharkiv and the smaller towns of western Donetsk oblast — Kramatorsk in particular.

As for Kyiv, make no mistake: the russians will be back. When the black earth in the region around Ukraine’s capital hardens enough to enable them to advance through the fields instead of having to stay on paved roads, they will return. Again, Ukraine’s forces will push them back, but again and again they will try — as long as the chief locust remains in the kremlin (or in his bunker).

Next time we will be even more ready than before. No more local turncoat collaborators in our midst. Hopefully, with a strong anti-aircraft and anti-missile shield. Certainly, with even more determined defenders.

Слава Україні!*

#ThoughtsfromKyiv

* Slava Ukrayini! (translit. for Ukrainian) – Glory to Ukraine!

Volodymyr Yermolenko: rashism, instead, does not recognize anyone’s right to live. April 3

Stop comparing putin and hitler. russia today is a special type of evil. It’s worse than nazism. nazism specified the categories of people to be annihilated and committed their terrible crimes against these categories. The others were described as “Übermensch” and awarded the right to get on with their criminal lives. rashism, instead, does not recognize anyone’s right to live. It destroys because it relishes destruction. It doesn’t care who it destroys. It also destroys its own soldiers, sending them to death and leaving them to die without any memory. It destroys Russian-speaking cities, because it does not care about Russian-speaking cities and the “russian world.”

It destroys “its own people” with as much enthusiasm as “others”. rashism is a total crime against humanity, against everything that is human. It’s a triumph of total death.

Myсhailo Wynnyckyj: Thoughts from Kyiv. April 4

Dignity. As the tragedies of Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin, Borodyanka, and of the villages north of Kyiv that lived (and died) through a month of russian occupation become better known, what strikes me (and others) as the most catastrophic, the most revolting, nauseating and disgusting, about these mass killings is that their victims were denied Dignity.

These people, and their brethren in Mariupol, Kharkiv, Kherson, and countless other cities, towns and villages throughout Ukraine that russian soldiers have temporarily captured, suffered and died not because they were combatants, not because they resisted occupation, not because they somehow threatened the authority of the russians. They were killed because their death gave the russians pleasure.

Immanuel Kant — perhaps the foremost philosopher of the modern world — proposed a simple principle for determining the morality of any action. He called it the “categorical imperative.” Simply put, a human being should never be treated as a means or instrument; a human being is an end. A human being is of value. A human being has dignity.

When a 10-year old girl is brought to hospital in Zaporizhzhia from occupied Mariupol with vaginal and anal tearing, the world is appalled because she has been denied dignity. Her body was used as an instrument of gruesome decadence by russian soldiers.

When the body of an elderly man on a bicycle is found at the side of the road in Irpin with half his head shot off, we are repulsed because the dead man was denied dignity. Next to the body lies the man’s dog, mourning his master for two days after the russians left him to rot on the curb. The dog understands dignity.

When the bodies of a family of four are found in a mass grave in Bucha, each with their hands tied behind their backs and bullets in their skulls, journalists and politicians bear silent witness. These Ukrainians were denied both their dignity and humanity.

The Ukrainian word “hidnist” is most often translated into English as “dignity.” The translation misses a significant amount of the Ukrainian subtext. In English (and in French) “dignity” implies an earned quality: something exclusive that is not universally possessed. After-all, a person can act dignified, or can be undignified. Historically, dignity was considered a quality of the upper classes that became “democratized” over time.

In Ukrainian, hidnist is a quality universally possessed To call a person a “nehidnyk” (lacking dignity) is extremely insulting. And when a person — in this case the russian soldier — denies hidnist to his fellow man (woman, child), Ukrainians are deeply wounded. Retribution is avowed because depravity must be avenged.

For a Ukrainian hidnist is an element of humanness that is to be universally respected. To deny hidnist is to deny humanity, to treat another as a means of gratification (indulgence, vile amusement, carnal decadence) rather than as an end, a value, a treasure. Such behavior deserves not only punishment, but revenge.

Until two days ago when the war crimes of the russians were merely hearsay, their invasion was viewed by many Ukrainians as a calamity, but one that periodically has beset this country throughout history. Now that the truly evil nature of the enemy has become obvious for all, victory in this war (including retribution and punishment of the russian invader) has become a moral imperative for the entire nation.

Eight years ago, the anti-Yanukovych protests in Kyiv were given the name “Revolution of Dignity.” Then, we stood for the dignity (hidnist) of the nation, of the people. We demonstrated our displeasure with a regime that violated the dignity of students and youth who were beaten; with a government that denied citizens the right to free expression, movement (particularly visa-free travel), economic opportunity…

Now our fight is for hidnist in its fundamental sense: for the right to be, to exist, to live. russia denies us that right. It is evil. There can be no compromise.

On March 31 the Levada Center, a largely western funded moscow-based polling company, published the results of a representative survey of russians:

53% solidly support and another 28% support on the whole, the actions of the russian armed forces in Ukraine.

Together that’s 81% support!

51% of respondents said the actions of the russian armed forces in Ukraine activated feelings of PRIDE in russia. Not shame — pride … 

A russia that rejects the dignity of humanity must be defeated and destroyed. It’s either us or them.

God help us!

#ThoughtsfromKyiv

Valerii Pekar: That is what a human is like. April 5

Hundreds of people in my feed ask a rhetorical question “how could these savages deteriorate to such crimes.”

Let me tell you an unpleasant thing to hear.

They are not savages. This is not an exception or a distortion. That is a human the way they looked and behaved during the major part of human history. A human who kills, rapes, tortures and loots just because they can do this, – and no preventing mechanism in the form of commanders’ prohibitions, punishment, morale, or rules exist yet. A wild human whose life was described by Hobbes as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” That is what people looked like and behaved over tens of thousands of years.

Until the moment Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Mahavira, Jesus, Muhammad, and others came and tried to replace all this. And they finally did. But not everywhere, not always and not forever.

Once I started reading the Code of Hammurabi. After some pages I got sick of it. Each paragraph finished in a sentence: death, death, death. For any faults. I was sick of it, but I realized: people in the world with no rules, no morale, no reflection, no systems, no order, no sense that another human being is also a human, – just don’t understand anything but death.

Now you know what the Barbarians attacking the capitals of ancient countries, from Babylon to Rome, from Jerusalem to Canaan, looked like.

To take people from low strata of the society, to hump their brains out through propaganda, to explain that they are facing the Nazi who do not have the right to live, to give weapons to them, to appoint commanders of the same type, not to give food to them, to keep them on bare ground over three months of winter, and then to send them to a nice and prosperous suburban area where wealthy and smart middle class lives, promising trophies and no punishment, – the result was supposed to be exactly like that, not in any way different.

Each war criminal is to die, from an ordinary executioner to chief executioner having the rank of colonel.

But the main thing is that the anti-human social and political machine must be dismantled. Otherwise Bucha will happen everywhere.

Volodymyr Yermolenko: What stays with you. April 7

War separates you from what’s always been with you, what’s always been you. It leaves you alone with some scant remains of you. Because you are not you without the color of your walls. Because you are not you without the cracks on the pavement of your yard. Because you are not you without a squeak of the swing in the nearest playground. Because you are not you without the look of your neighbor who always smiles when she sees your children.

Those who have left their cities write love letters to them. Google them in the news, tag them on social networks, invite them to dates in their sleep. What has happened to that store on the corner of the streets nearby that I used to walk every morning? Who of the neighbors has stayed, who has left, and who may have already returned? Do traffic lights work at intersections? Are apricots blooming in your backyard?

People who are so uncertain, so groundless, so nomadic suddenly turn out to have their roots so deep in their land, like plants, like flowers. They cling with their roots to the damp bricks of their houses. They are happy to come back to the places where it used to be banal or even sad to come back to. They ask their relatives or friends who stayed here: take a picture of my yard for me. Go into my apartment and tell it I love it.

But some people won’t have a place to go back to. Their spaces have been amputated, and it will take them a long time to raise new ones. Raising space is like raising children. First you take care of them, then they take care of you. When your space is gone, you suddenly realize: you no longer have a body. Because you can’t call that homeless lost piece of matter with your hands and feet your body. Too little. Too weak. Too unhuman.

War teaches us that we are much more than what we are. That our bodies include the space of our homes and our cities and our country. That our memory goes much deeper than the memory of our last few decades. That the spirits of our dead talk through us, penetrating the bodies of those who are still to be born.

War teaches us that things can talk. That they, too, have the right to change their meanings. In this world, a window is no longer a window, but, for example, a source of danger. And light is no longer light, but a signal for the enemy that helps them identify their targets. And a selfie at a roadblock can cost someone their life. And a plate of rice porridge made by a volunteer for an IDP is a sign of love.

Things have become texts that tell us new stories. You assess the surrounding reality based on a simpler and stricter logic: what will help us survive, and what can kill us? The space ceases to be homogeneous: ten kilometers north, and you will find yourself in a place where you can be killed. Time ceases to be homogeneous: a few hours of delay, and you may not see the end of the day. Time and space today have turned into ups and downs. Everyone builds their own paths in them, and no companions will help with that. Everyone follows their instincts.

War reveals how flawed individualism is. How we are interwoven into a lace of collective bodies. How we feel our people, how we know that these people on the roads, in the cities, under the ruins, with weapons, behind the frontlines are us. And those who walked these streets a hundred years ago, created, and fought — it’s also us. And those who will come after us to rebuild these lands or explore new planets are also us.

These people, these things, these memories, these hopes are what lives with you. War tears them away from you, but makes you feel them even deeper. War is a state of accelerated loss. It increases our chances of losing everything we love. Everything we are. Relatives, loved ones, ourselves. But it can also provide an opportunity for gains.

russia started this war because it had lost itself a long time ago. With its insane destructiveness, it has only one thing in mind: to make others feel this lostness. For losses to become the law of history. If it has lost itself, what right do others have to preserve themselves?

But for us, russia is not a law anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. However painful our losses are, we keep saving and gaining. We cannot lose ourselves because we have already recovered ourselves.

We have recovered what we live with, what is always with us, what will always be with you. Your forest, your field, your village, your roadblock, your lovers, your to-bes. We won’t lose it. For what makes us ourselves is what we are willing to defend. What we seek to keep at any cost.

Myсhailo Wynnyckyj: Thoughts from Kyiv. April 7

The battle of the century is coming. It will involve tens of thousands of soldiers on both the russian and Ukrainian sides and it will begin in Ukraine’s Donbas very soon — likely sometime next week. Hostilities are already ongoing there now, but what is coming is likely to dwarf everything that we have seen in this war so far.

Speaking at NATO HQ in Brussels today, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba predicted that the coming battle would be similar to the large-scale clashes of World War II involving hundreds of tanks, multiple infantry and mechanized artillery divisions, coordinated airstrikes. The advantage previously enjoyed by Ukraine’s forces, armed with light and hi-tech Javelin, NLAW, and Stuhna anti-tank weapons and Stinger missiles, will likely not be sufficient this time to defeat the russian invader. Ukraine needs heavier weapons — quickly.

Reports from social media and western intelligence show large numbers of russian forces being transferred from belarus (after their withdrawal from the Kyiv area), from the russian far east, from regions occupied by russia in Georgia, from “peace keeping” missions in Uzbekistan, in Moldova, in Azerbaijan, Syria… In addition, reservists from russia’s poorest regions are being offered large sums of money to sign up for service in Ukraine. All these troops (and their equipment) seem to be amassing in the direct vicinity of Ukraine’s eastern border.

The russian invaders obviously do not enjoy the same levels of motivation and morale as are evident among Ukraine’s defenders. The kremlin’s compensation offer to its experienced reservists and to new conscripts seems to involve general authorization for russian soldiers to loot, steal, rape, pillage and plunder in whatever quantities while in Ukraine. Therefore, expect more evidence of russian war crimes — likely on a much larger scale than those witnessed recently in the area north of Kyiv — to become public very soon.

For moscow, war is not an instrument of foreign policy through which it can achieve some predetermined goal (e.g. expansion of influence, greater security, economic benefit, protection of cultural interests etc.). If war were an instrument, rules of engagement would be communicated and enforced. For the kremlin, war is an end in itself — an activity with no rules or limits.

Today, responding to questions as to the russian reaction to peace proposals tabled last week in Istanbul by Ukrainian negotiators, Foreign Minister sergei lavrov accused Kyiv of presenting a draft peace deal that differed substantially from previously agreed positions (when “previously” was not articulated). The deal proposed by Ukraine apparently includes a green light to hold military drills with foreign countries on Ukrainian territory without receiving russia’s permission (!), and a deferral of discussion of the future status of Crimea until direct talks between Zelensky and putin. Both of these positions are “unacceptable” to moscow.

russia has no need or interest in peace. The recent programmatic article entitled “What russia should do with Ukraine” published by RIA Novosti — an official russian state media outlet — makes things exceptionally clear: peace is not a desired state for the kremlin. For the russian regime, historical periods of peace merely represent pauses between active phases of continuous war. The purpose of the current war is to “solve the Ukrainian question.” But after that is done, other “questions” will appear on moscow’s agenda…

Just as it was prior to 24 February, today I find myself frustrated not because of the realization that more death and destruction is on the way, but because there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop it. We cannot avoid the fight, we can only prepare for it.

Ukraine needs weapons now! This was the message delivered by Kuleba today to NATO, and this is the message that should be screamed from every rooftop by those who support our cause.

Ukrainians understand that this war must be fought by Ukrainians: there will be no NATO boots on the ground nor NATO planes in the air to help us. NATO will protect its eastern flank but will not extend that protection to the eastern frontier of the European continent (i.e. to Ukraine’s eastern border). Someday the wisdom of this policy will be questioned, but for now it has been decided: Ukraine will be defended by Ukrainians.

Accepting (though not necessarily agreeing) with this position, Ukrainians will continue to ask (plea, beg, request, demand…) the instruments required for our defense. Please give Ukraine heavy weapons — NOW!

We have a war to win!

#ThoughtsfromKyiv

Taras Prokhasko: Combat immunology lessons. April 7

It has been several weeks since all traditional Ukrainian toasting was totally displaced by the only new and certain toast – “To the Victory!” For against all odds, those who needed a drink would act as usual. After all, the world has not been reversed to the extent that the need vanished or the alcohol disappeared. I suspect that the toast is most widespread today with the russkies, too. Everyone badly needs the victory. We just need to stay away from confusion with the words and images, and keep a sound mind ideating our victory in detail.

In the heat of the redemption feeling we started conjuring up the pictures of our victory as a total crash of russia and its extermination from the world of russian spirit. The illusion is well explicable but sickly. It is religious but far from righteous. We could observe something similar when several months ago various prayer groups praying for the pandemic to end would explain the meaning of their practices as “wanting the pest to perish.”

This is where the misreading of God’s purpose happens. Viruses are the same creatures as millions of other species. Their main purpose is to be. It is not only about surviving among all others but also to richly proliferate, which goes in line with all the heredity and variability laws. Another thing is that to live means to absorb someone else’s life. This is the work of nature. This is how mankind works. It is truly said, that the Creator took care of the co-existence in nature. And He left to the mankind the freedom of co-creation.

To be yourself, to become yourself, and to remain yourself is the only victory possible.

Our specific victory in this perpetual war is about defending ourselves and going free, to continue as Ukraine. It works the same as with viruses – we need to build the immunity.

russia’s victory is perpetual in the same way. They have repeatedly confirmed that they remained themselves. As usually, they managed to do their own way, without restraining their essence in the transformed form of the co-existence of mankind.

At some point, the traitor of the russian chief command, suvorov (as a matter of fact, in russia, they keep reminding that he was Ukrainian by origin, which is sufficient to explain the treason), described the philosophic principle the russkie intelligence services followed: all humans are cruel but some pretend to be humane, that is why they are the worst. This premise seems to be fundamental for the entire russian civilization.

How russkies act in Ukraine is inherent to all and at all times. However, the point in the evolution of history is in attempting to be a co-creator of human co-existence. Being aware of your nature, still cherishing the best in you. To ensure that the conscious pretense becomes the nature of consciousness passed down genetically, fair to say. This is how victories present themselves.

Time has shown that Ukraine is leapfrogging the patches in the history of victories that used to take hundreds of years. The adaptability in the settings of preserving the heredity is a great victory. The chosen vector is correct – it aims at the conscious attempts to be better. To co-create and, thus, to assert the human co-existence.

After the fire of the current war is extinguished, the chance for boosting the collective immune system will increase. However, it takes the conscious effort to build the total immunity and resilience. In that case, the next russian threat will be overcome much easier. Until the full insusceptibility to their virus.

The editorial “rule of small letters” or the “rule of disrespect for criminals” applies to all the words related to evil, like names and surnames of terrorists, war criminals, rapists, murderers, and torturers. They do not deserve being capitalized but shall be written in italics to stay in the focus of the readers’ attention. 

The program “Wars. Ukrainians. Humanity” has been created by joint effort and with the financial support of the institution’s members of the Cultural Business Education Hub, the European Cultural Foundation, and BBK — the Regensburg Art and Culture Support Group from the Professional Association of Artists of Lower Bavaria/Upper Palatinate.

Authors: Mychailo Wynnyckyj, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Valerii Pekar, Taras Prokhasko 

Translators (from Ukrainian): Halyna Bezukh (Volodymyr Yermolenko’s essays), Halyna Pekhnyk (Valerii Pekar’s essay), Svitlana Bregman (Taras Prokhasko’s essay)

Illustrators: Victoria Boyko (Mychailo Wynnycky’s essays), Nastya Gaydaenko (Volodymyr Yermolenko’s essays), Max Palenko (Valerii Pekar’s essay), Yuliya Tabenska (Taras Prokhasko’s essay), and plasticine panel by Olha Protasova

Copyeditors: Yuliia Moroz, Terra Friedman King

Proofreaders: Iryna Andrieieva, Tetiana Vorobtsova, Terra Friedman King

Content Editors: Maryna Korchaka, Natalia Babalyk

Program Directors: Julia Ovcharenko and Demyan Om Dyakiv-Slavitski