Showing all posts tagged: Ukraine
A pre-war deal between Ukraine and Russia? What deal exactly?
20 February 2025
If Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had made a deal with Russia three years ago, the war in Ukraine could have been avoided. According, that is, to United States President Donald Trump:
This could’ve been settled very easily, just a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without the loss of much land, very little land, without the loss of any lives, without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides.
Was an undertaking not to join NATO meant to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to take back territory he’s long considered part of the old Russian Empire? Or were the Ukrainians expected to offer a whole lot more?
RELATED CONTENT
current affairs, politics, Ukraine
Intercepted, a Ukraine war documentary by Oksana Karpovych
19 February 2025
Ukrainian film director Oksana Karpovych’s documentary, Intercepted, which features phone calls between invading Russian soldiers and their families in Russia, has one of the starkest trailers I’ve seen in a long while.
Phil Hoad, writing for The Guardian, described Intercepted as chilling, and compelling:
Juxtaposing intercepted calls back home from frontline Russian troops with shots of the devastation they have wreaked in Ukraine, this film is a bleak and searing wiretap into Putin’s warping effect on his people and the psychology of power.
RELATED CONTENT
current affairs, documentary, film, Oksana Karpovych, politics, Ukraine
The Peaky Blinders military unit helping to defend Ukraine
21 June 2024
Kathryn Diss and Mathew Marsic, writing for ABC News:
For Commander Anton, it’s difficult to imagine returning to his quiet life before the war. The 33-year-old former builder is now a battle-hardened soldier who risks his life every day, just kilometres from the Russian border. He is part of an elite squad of soldiers who call themselves the “Peaky Blinders”, after the violent British television drama.
What a remarkable story. I couldn’t conceive of being involved in a drawn out armed conflict to defend my homeland. But then neither of course did the brave Peaky Blinders unit members, until Russia invaded their country. More power to them, I say.
RELATED CONTENT
You Don’t Know What War Is a book by Yeva Skalietska
25 November 2022
Nine months have passed since Russia commenced its illegal invasion of Ukraine. Despite the brutality of the aggressors, Ukrainian defenders have steadfastly resisted Russian attempts to deprive them of their sovereignty. And while many of us empathise with the struggle of the Ukrainian people, few can truly understand the horrors they confront daily.
Stories and books, such as You Don’t Know What War Is (published by Bloomsbury), written by twelve year old Ukrainian girl Yeva Skalietska, are vital when it comes to appreciating what is happening, even if they can only impart some of the experience, some of the constant, around the clock, fear:
Everyone knows the word ‘war’. But very few understand what it truly means. When you find you have to face it, you feel totally lost, walled in by fright and despair. Until you’ve been there, you don’t know what war is.
This is the gripping and moving diary of young Ukrainian refugee Yeva Skalietska. It follows twelve days in Ukraine that changed 12-year-old Yeva’s life forever. She was woken in the early hours to the terrifying sounds of shelling. Russia had invaded Ukraine, and her beloved Kharkiv home was no longer the safe haven it should have been. It was while she was forced to seek shelter in a damp, cramped basement that Yeva decided to write down her story. And it is a story the world needs to hear.
RELATED CONTENT
books, Ukraine, Yeva Skalietska
UFO sightings surge in skies above Ukraine recently
16 September 2022
Astronomers in Ukraine have observed an uptick in unidentified flying objects over the country in recent months. While it seem obvious there would be more aerial activity with a war raging in the region, scientists are adamant what they’re seeing in Ukrainian skies are not military vessels.
Ukraine astronomers have reported a slew of UFOs observed in the country’s airspace. They’ve reported their findings in a preprint paper published by Kyiv’s Main Astronomical Observatory Ukraine’s National Academy of Science. Remember, UFOs don’t necessarily mean extraterrestrial spaceships from other planets. Perhaps they are advanced military aircraft from much closer to home, like even from one of Ukraine’s (ahem) neighbors.
All the more curious given recent reports from US Navy pilots who say they’ve seen unidentified flying objects during flight operations. Are unidentified flying objects drawn to areas where military craft are operating?
RELATED CONTENT
Quick and quiet e-bikes assisting Ukrainian defenders
15 July 2022
Ukrainian soldiers have been using e-bikes, specially modified to carry light anti-tank weapons, in the defence of their country from Russian invaders. The e-bikes allow defenders to move both quickly, and crucially, quietly, to positions where they are needed.
Soldiers on electric bikes have been spotted across Ukraine since the early days of the war, mostly on ELEEK brand bikes. e-bikes are fast and, critically, much quieter than a gas powered bike. They allow soldiers to perform quick guard patrols or move swiftly into position.
RELATED CONTENT
Zelensky, a book by Andrew L Urban, Chris McLeod
6 June 2022
Zelensky (published by Wilkinson Publishing, April 2022), is a portrait of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, written by Australian author and former film critic Andrew L. Urban, and journalist and author Chris McLeod, which examines Zelensky’s resilience in the face of the Russian invasion of his country.
No one has been more surprised by Zelensky’s power to inspire and mobilise his countrymen and the world than Vladimir Putin, who expected Russia’s conquest of its beleaguered neighbour to be the work of an afternoon. Outfoxed and isolated, Putin is not the first person to have underestimated the former comedian with a spine of steel.
RELATED CONTENT
Andrew L. Urban, Australian literature, Chris McLeod, non-fiction, Ukraine
Photos from inside the besieged Mariupol steel plant
23 May 2022
The photos were taken by Dmytro Kozatsky, one of several thousand Ukrainian soldiers who managed to defend the Azovstal steel plant for almost three months, from Russian invaders. Kozatsky is now being held by the Russians as a prisoner of war.
Here’s hoping he wins an award for these images.
RELATED CONTENT
Bono and Edge of U2 perform in Kyiv Ukraine
17 May 2022
Excerpts of a surprise performance given by Bono and Edge of Irish rock band U2, accompanied by Ukrainian band Antytila, whose members are also assisting in defending their country from the Russian invasion. Bono told those gathered in the Kyiv metro station that is doubling as a bomb shelter, their people fight not just for their freedom, but for all who cherish liberty:
Your presence leads the world in the cause of freedom right now. The people of Ukraine are not just fighting for your own freedom, you are fighting for all of us who love freedom.
Bono’s on point as per usual.
RELATED CONTENT
Sergiy Maidukov, Kyiv based Ukrainian illustrator
2 May 2022
Sergiy Maidukov is an illustrator based in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, whose work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian.
During the day he assists in defending his country from the Russian invasion, and at night, while confined to his apartment on account of curfews, draws what he sees from his windows, all too often sights no one should have to witness:
Sometimes, I see an explosion reflected on the glass surface of a skyscraper, or silent flares going up and then burning out in a shower of sparks. One week, I saw anti-aircraft guns firing tracer rounds into the night sky, where a hunt for a Russian drone was under way.
RELATED CONTENT