Hi, this is Olga, one of the editors of Ukraine Stories. Over the last week, we’ve received dozens more moving stories from journalists across Ukraine and Russia. Some are heart-wrenching, while others are uplifting.

To cite just a few, we heard from our Ukrainian correspondent Mariana Tsymbalyuk, whose protagonist first fled her home in Donetsk when it was occupied by Russian proxies in 2014. She rebuilt her life in Mariupol, but had to escape after the February invasion.

Journalist Oleksandra Ambroz interviews two doctors bringing babies into the world in Kharkiv under the threat of Russian missiles. There’s also a soulful story from Tatiana Frolova, director of Russian theatre group KnAM, whose plays are banned from stages in their own country but are a big success in Europe.

For Russian and Ukrainian speakers, you can read some of those stories in their original language here and for our French readers in Le Temps!

Olga Vasylyk

17.05.2022

Latest news from our Ukrainian and Russian colleagues

Rescued cat (Credit: provided by Svitlana Vovk)

Week13: Getting around Kyiv during war. In this week's blog, one of our Ukrainian correspondents, Uri Rogoza, describes driving around the battered city of Kyiv, between earth piles, concrete beams, and anti-tank hedgehogs. We also hear a separate story about how 73-year-old Yuri almost lost his life after opening his front gate to the Russian soldiers occupying his small village close to Kyiv. Meanwhile, in Mykolayiv, a cat finds refuge in the city's main pumping station!

Geneva Solution (EN)

Ukrainian women get Kosovan expertise in demining Russian munitions. One of our correspondents, Liudmyla Makei, recently evacuated to Kosovo under a special programme for Ukrainian journalists displaced by the war. She visits a famous demining centre in the country that trains young Ukrainian women how to clear mines back home and make their country safe.

Geneva Solutions (EN)

Must reads

‘We are used to violence’. Banned from stages back home, Russian theatre director Tatiana Frolova gives an assessment on her country’s current state of mind.
Geneva Solutions (EN)
Unexploded memories. For journalist Nigina Beroeva, the war has “detonated” memories of living through civil war 30 years ago.
Geneva Solutions (EN)
Russians braced for increase in crime. Sanctions have exacerbated many of the country’s domestic problems including poverty, writes journalist Ivan Zhilin.
Geneva Solutions (EN)
‘Learn to accept help with dignity.’ A Ukrainian journalist and refugee describes both the relief and the challenges that come with building a new life in a foreign country.
Geneva Solutions (EN)
Bringing life amid death: Kharkiv doctor delivers babies in wartime.
Geneva Solutions (EN)

Image of the week

Maria Prymachenko's painting "Flowers grew around the fourth block". Paper, gouache. 1990. (Credit: auction house "Dukat")

Prymachenko painting auction raises half a million for Ukrainian army. A painting by the legendary Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko sold for a record half a million dollars last week to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a sensational ending to a charity auction. The painting, “Flowers grew round the fourth block”, is one of four works by Prymachenko inspired by the Chornobyl tragedy.

Geneva Solutions (EN)

On the agenda

📌 20 May | War crimes in Ukraine? The Human Rights Council in question. Will it be possible, one day, to judge Vladimir Putin, if the charges against him are sufficient? This is one of the questions that will be debated this Friday at the Geneva Press Club, with speakers Federico Villegas, president of the UN Human Rights Council and ambassador of Argentina, Lucy McKernan, UN deputy director for Advocacy at Human Rights Watch, and Felix Kirchmeier, executive director of the Geneva Platform for Human Rights.

Geneva Press Club (EN)

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