By the 41st day of Russia's war against Ukraine, the Russian aim of destroying Ukrainians and Ukraine on all possible levels has become clear.
Russians continue exterminating Ukrainians while the world is watching. Russia’s war has taken thousands of innocent lives, caused great destruction of civil infrastructure, and devastated the architectural and cultural heritage of Ukrainian cities.
What’s going on?
- After the Ukrainian army liberated Kyiv’s suburbs, which had been under Russian occupation since the beginning of the full-scale war, they found the bodies of civilians brutally killed by Russian forces. Some corpses exhibited signs of torture: their hands tied behind their backs and beheaded. Almost 300 people were buried in a mass grave in Bucha near Kyiv.
- Women and girls from the liberated areas have recounted gang-rapes at the hands of Russian soldiers, assaults taking place at gunpoint, and rapes committed in front of children. In intercepted calls, Russian soldiers tell relatives about raping minors, eating dogs and marauding. The occupiers have set up a market in Belarus selling looted property from Ukraine.
- In libraries in the temporarily occupied territories, the occupants seize Ukrainian fiction and history books that are not consistent with Russia’s ideology. The occupiers force teachers and educators to resume the educational process in the Russian language. At the same time, the UN’s cultural agency has confirmed that at least 53 Ukrainian historical sites, religious buildings and museums have sustained damage during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Russian propaganda openly declares Russia’s desire to exterminate Ukrainians as a nation. 83% of the Russian population supports Putin’s fascist agenda.
Ukrainian writers and journalists during the war
- This war has once again shown us that a pen, microphone, laptop or camera in the hands of professionals is no less powerful than ‘Bayraktar’. Watch our video about Ukrainian writers and journalists during the war (with ENG subtitles).
10 literary reportage books to understand Ukraine
- Before the Russian invasion of 2022, many people could barely find Ukraine on the world map. Now, the names of Ukrainian cities resonate on daily international news casts in the most tragic of circumstances. Yet their intimate pre-war histories – containing multitudes of lives, wishes and daily struggles – remain mostly unknown to the outside world. PEN Ukraine recently published a list of fiction and non-fiction books in English to help international audiences better understand Ukraine. Now we are showcasing a collection of literary reportage that may appeal to readers abroad.