James Waterhouse, a BBC correspondent in Ukraine, notes a “final ovation” for Oleksandr Shapoval — an ovation at the Kyiv Opera House. Shapoval was a ballet dancer. As Waterhouse says, “He’d performed for 28 seasons before volunteering to fight in the east. While Ukraine enjoys successes on the battlefield, his death is a reminder of the enduring, awful cost of this war.”
I think of a couple of things. The first is not very important. But I think of it.
In December 2019, I attended the ballet in Kyiv and wrote about it. Was Shapoval on the stage? I don’t think so. I can’t be sure.
At that time — late 2019 — about 14,000 people had been killed, in the war started by Vladimir Putin’s Russia in 2014. In a piece called “Ukraine and Us,” I wrote,
At the edge of St. Michael’s monastery — a beautiful light-blue structure, with golden domes — there is a Wall of Remembrance. It commemorates fallen soldiers. It reminds me a little of the Vietnam memorial in Washington. One difference, however, is that this wall has photos. You see the faces of the dead.
Virtually all of these people are known only to their family and friends, of course. But one of them, Vasyl Slipak, had some fame in the broader world. He was a baritone, an opera singer, working mainly in France. He returned home to volunteer for the war and was killed in June 2016.
Anton Gerashchenko, a governmental adviser in Ukraine, says,
Oleksandr Shapoval, soloist of National Opera ballet, Honored Artist of Ukraine, died in combat near Mayorsk, Donetsk region. He went to the frontlines as a volunteer and served as a grenade launcher. RIP, Hero.
• From Erika Solomon of the New York Times, a piece headed “5 Russian Bullets Dashed an Opera Singer’s Dreams. Then He Reclaimed His Voice.” We learn that Sergiy Ivanchuk “spent months in the hospital after he was shot trying to save civilians fleeing Kharkiv.”
Ivanchuk, age 29, thought he would die. He did not die. Moreover, he can sing again.
His dream — like that of all opera singers — is to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York or the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Ms. Solomon’s article quotes him as saying, “I think in five years I could make it onto one of those stages. As long as no one else shoots me.”
• Something to know about:
Investigators searching through a mass burial site in Ukraine have found evidence that some of the dead were tortured, including bodies with broken limbs and ropes around their necks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday.
The site near the northeastern city of Izium, recently recaptured from Russian forces, appears to be one of the largest discovered in Ukraine.
I have quoted from an Associated Press report, here.
• Something else to know about:
A volunteer Ukrainian medic detained in Ukraine’s besieged port city of Mariupol told U.S. lawmakers Thursday of comforting fellow detainees as many died during her three months of captivity, cradling and consoling them as best she could, as male, female and child prisoners succumbed to Russian torture and untreated wounds.
That is another Associated Press report, found here.
For a report from RFE/RL — Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty — on the same subject, go here. That report begins,
Ukrainian medic Yulia Payevska described to U.S. lawmakers on September 15 “prisoners in cells screaming for weeks, and then dying from the torture without any medical help.”
Putin has many, many fans and apologists here in the United States. Some of them dot the media. And, of course, you will find them crowding the comments sections. What can the rest of us do?
I think of the advice that Elie Kedourie gave to David Pryce-Jones many years ago: “Keep your eye on the corpses.”
• Here is another report from RFE/RL: “A Ukrainian priest told @radiosvoboda that he was abducted and tortured by Russian forces after he traveled to Snake Island to collect the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers thought to have been killed.”
• Myroslava Petsa, another BBC journalist, writes,
Izyum, Bucha, Borodyanka, Mariupol embody just what could have happened to all of Ukraine if Ukrainian troops hadn’t stopped the Russian invasion. The now impossible ‘peace’ deal granting Russia a chunk of Ukraine would mean sacrificing people who inhabit those territories.
This is something that too few people in the West understand. They say, some of them, that the Ukrainians are fighting for “territory” — mere territory. Ukrainian territory that has been seized and occupied by Russians. More than that, the Ukrainians are fighting for the people in those territories. They are doing all they can to spare their countrymen murder, rape, and subjugation.
In an article, Nataliya Melnyk, the director of a free-market think tank in Ukraine, spells this out. “Ukrainians Won’t Live Under Russian Fascism After Escaping Soviet Communism: They are fighting so hard because they know what’s in store if Putin wins.”
Yes. Of course. Given this, shouldn’t Ukrainians have the support of all people of good will?
• Oleksandra Matviichuk, a human-rights activist in Ukraine, has circulated a photo of a girl weeping at her father’s flag-draped coffin:
The price of liberation. 8-year-old Maria says her last goodbye to her father Artem Synelnikov, who served in the National Guard and died in the Kharkiv counteroffensive.
“The price of liberation” — yes.
• Years ago, Charles Krauthammer told me that the survival of Israel depended on two things: the determination of the Israelis to live and the support of the United States. I believe the same can be said of Ukraine: The survival of Ukraine depends on the determination of the Ukrainians to live and the support of the United States.
That the Ukrainians are determined to live — to keep their country and their independence; to resist invasion, occupation, and subjugation — is obvious. And so far, the support of the United States has held.
Of interest is a report in the New York Times: “The Critical Moment Behind Ukraine’s Rapid Advance.”
• As David French says, “America is still the arsenal of democracy.” This does not sit well with many; others of us think it is vital, and feel a certain pride in it. The split on the American right, in particular, is severe.
• There could well be new majorities in both houses of Congress next January. The Republican classes are likelier to be Trumpier, Fox Newsier, more Orbánite, more nat-pop — more than the current Republican classes, I mean. Will Congress continue to aid and arm Ukraine?
• From Quillette, an editorial headed “Horseshoe Theory Comes to Ukraine.” I will quote a paragraph:
One might think that Ukraine’s ability to defend itself so ably, and even to give the invaders a bloody nose in the process, would be met with cheers from across the political spectrum in Western nations. Yet Putin has his stubborn apologists in the free world — including some who’d seem to prefer that the Russian flag were still flying over Izyum, Kupiansk, and all over eastern Ukraine besides.
No question.
• Francis Scarr — another BBC-er — monitors Russian state TV. He writes,
. . . Vladimir Solovyov says his country should form an international coalition for its war in Ukraine including Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Nicaragua.
The gang’s all there. Les beaux esprits se rencontrent.
• A final report, for now — not as horrible as reports of torture, rape, and murder, but horrible in its own way, and quite revealing. “Locals Jailed, Fined For Ukrainian Song At Crimea Wedding Party.” That is a report from RFE/RL, here.
Jailed and fined for singing a song. A classic, and damnable, dictatorial touch — to be resisted.