War can seem an abstraction — mass murder, mass rape, mass deportation, etc. Where are the people, the individuals? It’s important, I find, to get to know a few.
The Washington Post has published an article headed “In Russian-occupied Izyum, she was raped and tortured.” It is a hard article to read. But think how hard it must be to live these things.
On Twitter, Anton Gerashchenko spoke of a family, saying,
Oksana Leontieva, a doctor in children’s bone marrow transplant department, took her 5 year old son to kindergarten yesterday and was driving to work when Russian rockets hit.
Her son is now an orphan – his dad died six months ago, his mom yesterday.
Accompanying these words is a picture of the late doctor, and mother.
Why are these things happening? These atrocities, these killings? Because one man wills it so: Vladimir Putin. He has a fan club in the West, which is bewildering. But then, Stalin had one too, so human experience varies little.
A note, and a video, from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty:
“They killed everything in my soul.”
Volodymyr Obodzinskiy lost his entire family in early March, when a Russian air strike hit his house and killed his 40-year-old wife, Natalya, his 14-year-old son Volodymyr, 19-year-old daughter Ivanka, and her 1-year-old twins.
Ukrainians were just ordinary people, going about their lives. Death and terror are raining down on them. It could be any of us — if we were unlucky enough to be Ukrainian.
• A lot of people are sniffy, if not downright critical, of the Ukrainian military’s attack on the Kerch Bridge, which is a key supply route for the Kremlin, connecting Russia with the Crimean Peninsula. I think of an old French saying: “Cet animal est très méchant: Quand on l’attaque, il se défend.” (“This animal is very mean: When you attack it, it defends itself.”)
Russians can easily avoid attack — by exiting the country they have invaded.
Bakhti Nishanov, of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, framed the matter well:
1. Ukraine is not escalating, Ukraine is trying to survive.
2. The burden to deescalate is not on Ukraine, it’s on the invading country.
Bear with me, but I thought of Ukraine when covering a performance of Tosca, the Puccini opera, last week. This is the situation, in Act II: Scarpia has had Cavaradossi tortured and will have him executed — unless Tosca submits to rape. She is resisting him. And he says to her, “Al tuo Mario, per tuo voler, non resta che un’ora di vita.” (“Thanks to you, your Mario has only an hour to live.”)
Isn’t this what Putin says to Ukrainians, in effect? And what many others — including people in America and other free countries — say to the Ukrainians? “Look what you’re making him do. It’s up to you, you know.”
• Julia Davis, of the Russian Media Monitor, circulates a video of Pavel Gubarev, a Russian boss in occupied Donetsk, who says, “We aren’t coming to kill you, but to convince you. But if you don’t want to be convinced, we’ll kill you. We’ll kill as many as we have to: one million, five million — or exterminate all of you.”
Duly noted.
• In an interview, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, was asked, “If you win, will Vladimir Putin survive?” After thinking for a few seconds, Zelensky gave what I regard as a perfect answer: “I don’t care.”
• Richard Engel, the chief foreign correspondent of NBC News, reported,
Russia has launched its most widespread attacks on civilian areas since the start of the war, but the big difference is in the response. Back in February, millions of Ukrainians fled. I came back today and saw no one leaving. Instead Russians are escaping the new draft.
That is interesting.
• Myroslava Petsa, of the BBC, quoted the German ambassador to Ukraine, Anka Feldhusen: “I am with hundreds of Kyivites in a shelter. Blown away by the calmness that reigns here while Russia has been targeting children’s playgrounds in central Kyiv.”
• Hanna Liubakova, the Belarusian journalist (in exile, of course), circulated a video and explained, “People are singing while hiding from shelling at the stations of the Kyiv metro.”
• Says Kaja Kallas, the Estonian prime minister, “I was born under Soviet occupation. I was [part of] a generation that was living without freedom. So I am not taking [freedom] for granted and I understand its value.”
Many, many people in eastern Europe — the former Soviet bloc — say the same thing. And they express frustration at the inability of Westerners, many of them, to understand.
• Some friends of Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Russian journalist, democracy activist, and politician, begged him to go into exile, rather than continue to risk murder or imprisonment. (He had already survived two murder attempts.) Kara-Murza declined. I have known him for years. He is a friend of mine. He is just about the bravest of the brave.
Vladimir is now a political prisoner, and faces a new charge of high treason. He faces up to 20 years in prison. To read a news article on this development, go here.
I wrote about Vladimir earlier this year (here). An excerpt:
On April 11, he appeared on CNN, from Moscow. . . .
His interviewer asked him about being in Russia, after all that had happened to him, and others. Wasn’t he afraid of being killed? Kara-Murza answered, “Look, I’m a Russian politician, I have to be in Russia, it’s my home country. I think the biggest gift we could give to the Kremlin — those of us who are in opposition — would be to just give up and run, and that’s all they want from us.”
He was arrested that night.
The Russian dictatorship has many, many friends around the world — friends, apologists, perfumers. Business partners. The likes of Vladimir Kara-Murza — risking everything for freedom, democracy, and human rights — need friends as well.
• “In Kyiv, U.S. midterms, and need for aid, cast shadow on battlefield gains.” That is an article in the Washington Post. Will the next Congress aid and arm Ukraine, as the current Congress has done? We will soon know.
Years ago, I asked Charles Krauthammer a blunt and grim question — a question I have asked many: “Do you think Israel will survive?” (I was writing a piece about Charles, exploring his life and thought.) He said that the survival of Israel depended on two things: the determination of Israelis to survive, and the support of the United States. I think the same of Ukraine. The determination of the Ukrainians to survive is clear. And the support of the United States?
In an interview about a week ago, I asked Oleksandra Matviichuk, “How important to Ukraine is the support of the United States?” (She is a Ukrainian human-rights lawyer and the director of the Center for Civil Liberties, in Ukraine. Last Friday, the center was announced as a recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.) She said that she could not think of the word in English for how important American support is. She knew it in Ukrainian. Finally, she said, “Extremely important, tremendously important.” She said this with considerable emotion.
To be continued.