Monthly Archives: April 2022

A monument to Taras Shevchenko is seen near a residential building destroyed by the russian army shelling in Borodyanka, Kyiv Region, north-central Ukraine.

Hennadii Minchenko | Nurphoto | Getty Images

WASHINGTON A Ukrainian delegation warned U.S. officials in Washington this week that security assistance packages are not arriving quick enough in the besieged country, a plea that comes amid Western security claims that the Kremlin will soon intensify its military campaign.

Over the past week, the delegation of Ukrainian civil society advocates, military veterans and former government officials met with 45 lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, officials at the departments of State and Defense and the National Security Council at the White House.

"It's the 44th day of the war that we were supposed to lose on the third day," began Daria Kaleniuk, who runs Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Action Center, a national organization that assists Ukraine's parliament and prosecutor's office.

"What we need now is to arm our military and our territorial defense units to be able to prevent more graves in the backyards of innocent people," she said on Friday.

Kaleniuk added that U.S. lawmakers and Biden administration officials outlined a number of justifications for why certain weapons systems cannot be delivered, citing logistics issues, lack of inventory and bureaucratic limitations.

"The six-year-old boy who is visiting his mother's grave in his backyard does not want to hear about bureaucracy as an excuse for not delivering weapons to Ukraine," Kaleniuk said.

"This is an extraordinary situation where extraordinary measures have to be done. Lift your bureaucracy, lift it now. The president of the United States has huge power, Congress has huge power. We know it's possible," she added.

In the courtyard of their house, Vlad Tanyuk, 6, stands near the grave of his mother Ira Tanyuk, who died because of starvation and stress due to the war, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 4, 2022.

Rodrigo Abd | AP

Earlier in the week, Ukrainian Foreign MinisterDmytro Kuleba also made a plea to NATO allies to catalyze the delivery of their arms commitments.

"Either you help us now, and I'm speaking about days not weeks, or your help will come too late," Kuleba told reporters at NATO's headquarters on April 7.

"I have no doubt that Ukraine will have the weapons necessary to fight. The question is the timeline. This discussion is not about the list of weapons. The discussion is about the timeline when do we get them and this is crucial," he said, adding "people are dying today, the offensive is unfolding today."

When asked about Kuleba's comments, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken downplayed concerns that allies were withholding weapons explicitly requested by Ukraine.

"They're coming forward with new systems that they think would be helpful and effective," Blinken said from NATO's headquarters.

"We put our own expertise to bear, especially the Pentagon to help determine what indeed we think could be effective. What Ukrainians will be ready to use as soon as they get it, and what we actually have access to and can get to them in real-time," he said, adding that the U.S. is working expeditiously to get appropriate weapons to Ukraine.

Blinken's comments echo those of U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley. Austin and Milley told lawmakers last week that some weapons systems on Ukraine's wish list require months of training in order to operate.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) meets with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium April 6, 2022.

Evelyn Hockstein | AFP | Getty Images

"Our point is, give Ukraine what it needs, what it asks, period," explained Olena Tregub, Ukraine's former director for international assistance at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

"We need strike drones, long-range and medium-range strike capabilities because as we sit here with you the Russians are moving huge columns, huge forces into the southeast of Ukraine," Tregub said.

Western intelligence reports have recently assessed that Russian forces will soon focus their military might in eastern and southern Ukraine after weeks of stalled ground advances on the capital city of Kyiv.

In the past six weeks, Russian forces on the ground in Ukraine have been beset with a slew of logistical problems on the battlefield, including reports of fuel and food shortages as well as frostbite.

"When Russia started this war, its initial aims were to seize the capital of Kyiv, replace the Zelensky government and take control of much if not all of Ukraine," national security advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House on April 4.

Sullivan said that U.S. officials believed the Kremlin is now revising its goal in the war.

A senior U.S. Defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to share new details from the Pentagon, said Russian troops once near Kyiv are currently being resupplied with additional manpower in Belarus.

The official said the Pentagon believes those troops will soon deploy back to the fight in Ukraine. When asked where the troops would likely go, the official said the Pentagon believes the majority of them will move to the Donbas region, the site of an ongoing conflict since 2014.

An woman walks in front of destroyed buildings in the town of Borodianka on April 6, 2022, where the Russian retreat last week has left clues of the battle waged to keep a grip on the town, just 50 kilometres (30 miles) north-west of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

Genya Savilov | AFP | Getty Images

"We need protection for our sky," said Maria Berlinska, a Ukrainian military veteran who fought in the conflict in Donbas. She asked U.S. lawmakers during a round-robin of meetings in Washington, D.C., for "serious weapons," including middle-range surface-to-air missile systems, jets, tanks and armored vehicles.

"We are almost out of ammunition. If you don't have ammunition you can't do anything," she said, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin's war will likely spill over Ukraine's borders.

"It's very naive to think that if Putin will take Ukraine he will stop," added Berlinska, who trains Ukrainian military volunteers in aerial reconnaissance.

"If we don't win this war, then it will be fought on NATO territory because Putin will not stop. He has larger plans and he has to be stopped in Ukraine," she warned.

Ukrainian soldiers walk next to destroyed Russian tanks and armored vehicles, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Bucha, in Kyiv region, Ukraine, April 6, 2022.

Alkis Konstantinidis | Reuters

Since Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion, the Biden administration has deployed more than 100,000 U.S. troops to NATO-member countries and authorized $1.7 billion in security assistance.

In addition, the NATO alliance has readied more than 140 warships as well as 130 aircraft on heightened alert. Meanwhile, NATO has consistently warned Putin that an attack on a NATO member state will be viewed as an attack on all, triggering the group's cornerstone Article 5.

Ukraine, which has sought NATO membership since 2002, is bordered by four NATO allies: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Poland currently hosts the majority of the troops from the 30-member alliance and has thus far taken the lion's share of refugees fleeing Putin's war.

"I think we've proved to the world that we are not going to surrender because we know that if we surrender there will be concentration camps. Putin is not even hiding what he is going to do with Ukrainians," the Anti-Corruption Action Center's Kaleniuk said.

"It's a genocide, the elimination of an entire nation and I'm not exaggerating," she added.

The UN has confirmed 1,793 civilian deaths and 2,439 injuries in Ukraine since Russia invaded its ex-Soviet neighbor on Feb. 24.

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Desperate Ukraine tells U.S. 'bureaucracy' is no excuse for failing to provide critical weapons and ammunition - CNBC

Ukrainians have essentially "won the battle of Kyiv", according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, while Russia continues shelling targets in eastern Ukraine.

Ms Psaki made the comments on Fox News on Sunday when she was asked about Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov admitting to "significant" military losses.

"We agree that that was interesting, rarely do they acknowledge from the Russian leadership any elements of weakness or any elements of defeat,"Ms Psaki said.

"It is also significant that essentially Ukrainians have won the battle of Kyiv.

"They've protected their city. And that is because of their bravery, their courage. But it is also because of the supplies, the military equipment, everything we've expedited $US1.7 billion ($2.2 billion) worth from the United States and the commitment and the dedication of the American people to this war."

Russian forces have continued shelling targets in eastern Ukraine, as Washington said it would meet Kyiv's request for more military aid by providing "the weapons it needs" to defend itself against Russia.

Russia has failed to take any major cities since it launched its invasion on February24, but Ukraine says it has been gathering its forces in the east for a major assault and has urged people to flee.

Warning: This story contains graphic images that may disturb some readers.

Russian forces fired rockets into Ukraine's Luhansk and Dnipropetrovsk regions on Sunday, officials said.

Missiles completely destroyed the airport in the city of Dnipro, said Valentyn Reznichenko, Governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region.

Russia's defence ministry said high-precision missiles had destroyed the headquarters of Ukraine's Dnipro battalion in the town of Zvonetsky.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the reports.

Ukraine's President warned his nation on Sunday night that the coming week would be as crucial as any in the war.

"Russian troops will move to even larger operations in the east of our state," Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.

He accused Russia of trying to evade responsibility for war crimes.

"When people lack the courage to admit their mistakes, apologise, adapt to reality and learn, they turn into monsters," Mr Zelenskyy said.

"And when the world ignores it, the monsters decide that it is the world that has to adapt to them. Ukraine will stop all this.

"The day will come when they will have to admit everything. Accept the truth."

Ukraine's border guard agency saidthat about 2,200 Ukrainian men of fighting age have been detained so far while trying to leave the country in violation of martial law.

The agency said some of them have used forged documents and others tried to bribe border guards to get out of the country.

It said some have been found dead while trying to cross the Carpathian mountains in adverse weather, without specifying the number.

Under martial law, Ukrainian men between 18 and 60 are barred from leaving the country so that they can be called up to fight.

A total of 2,824 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Sunday, including 213 residents of the besieged southern port of Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in an online post.

Ukraine's economic output will likely contract by a staggering 45.1 per centthis year as Russia's invasion has shuttered businesses, slashed exports and rendered economic activity impossible in large swathes of the country, the World Bank said on Sunday in a new report.

The bank said the estimate excludes the impact of physical infrastructure destructionbut said that would scar future economic output, along with the outflow of Ukrainian refugees to other countries.

"The Russian invasion is delivering a massive blow to Ukraine's economy and it has inflicted enormous damage to infrastructure," Anna Bjerde, the World Bank's vice-president for Europe and Central Asia, said in a statement.

"Ukraine needs massive financial support immediately as it struggles to keep its economy going and the government running to support Ukrainian citizens who are suffering and coping with an extreme situation."

The World Bank's "War in the Region" economic updateestimatesthat over half of Ukraine'sbusinesses are closed, while others still open are operating at well under normal capacity.

The closure of Black Sea shipping from Ukraine has cut off some 90 per centof the country's grain exports and half of its total exports.

Estimates of infrastructure damage exceeding $100 billion by early March about two-thirds of Ukraine's 2019 GDP are well out of date "as the war has raged on and caused further damage".

The World Bank also forecast Russia's 2022 GDP output to fall 11.2 per centdue to punishing financial sanctions imposed by the United States and its Western allies on Russia's banks, state-owned enterprises and other institutions.

Since Russia invaded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appealed to Western powers to provide more defence helpand to punish Moscow with tough sanctions.

"We're going to get Ukraine the weapons it needs to beat back the Russians to stop them from taking more cities and towns," said USnational security adviser Jake Sullivan.

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In extracts from an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes,Mr Zelenskyy said he had confidence in his own armed forces but, "unfortunately I don't have the confidence that we will be receiving everything we need" from the United States.

Mr Zelenskyy said earlier on Twitter that he had spoken on the phone with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about additional sanctions, as well as more defence and financial support for his country.

He also discussed with Ukrainian officials Kyiv's proposals for a new package of EU sanctions, his office said.

In a video address late on Saturday, Mr Zelenskyy renewed his appeal for a total ban on Russian energy products and more weapons for Ukraine.

The EU on Friday banned Russian coal imports among other products, but has yet to touch oil and gas imports from Russia.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who met Mr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Saturday, will travel to Russia to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, the Austrian government said.

He will be the first European Union leader to have a face-to-face meeting with Putin since the invasion.

Mr Nehammer saidon social media he had informed fellow EU leaders of his upcoming trip and called onthe Russian leader for a ceasefire in Ukraine.

"I will meet Vladimir #Putin in Moscow tomorrow. We are militarily neutral, but [we] havea clear position on the Russian war of aggression against the #Ukraine," he wrote on Twitter.

"It must stop! Itneeds humanitarian corridors, a ceasefire & full investigation of war crimes."

Mounting civilian casualties have triggered widespread international condemnation and new sanctions.

A grave with at least two civilian bodies has been found in Buzova village near Kyiv, said Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community that includes Buzova.

Mr Sullivan said on Sunday he expected Russia's newly appointed general overseeing Ukraine, Aleksandr Dvornikov, to authorise more brutality against the Ukrainian civilian population.

He did not cite any evidence.

Moscow has rejected accusations of war crimes by Ukraine and Western countries.

Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians in what it calls a "special operation" to demilitarise and "de-Nazify" its southern neighbour. Ukraine and Western nations have dismissed this as a baseless pretext for war.

Russia's invasion has forced about a quarter of Ukraine's 44 million people from their homes, turned cities into rubble and killed or injured thousands.

Some cities in the east were under heavy shelling, with tens of thousands of people unable to evacuate.

Calls by Ukrainian officials for civilians to flee gained more urgency after a missile strike hit a train station on Friday in the city of Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region, that was full of people trying to leave.

Donetsk region governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Sunday the death toll from a missile strike on the train station in Ukraine's Kramatorsk hadrisen to 57 people.

Mr Kyrylenko said 109 people were wounded in the attack, which Ukraine has blamed on Russia.

Russia has denied responsibility, saying the Tochka-U missiles used in the attack were only used by Ukraine's military.

Military analysts have pointed to evidence that Russia has also been using Tochka-U missiles, which are known to be extremely inaccurate.

Reuters was unable to verify the details of that attack.

Residents of the region of Luhansk would have nine trains on Sunday to get out on, the region's governor, Serhiy Gaidai, wrote on the Telegram message service.

New Zealand said on Monday it woulddeploy a C-130 Hercules and 58 personnel to Europe to further support Ukraine against Russia's invasion.

In a statement, New ZealandDefence Minister Peeni Henare said the team would travel throughout Europe, transporting equipment and supplies to distribution centres, but would not enter Ukraine.

The government also said it would donate an extra $NZ13.1 million ($12 million) towards military, legal and human rights support.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand's support was to help Ukraine repel the Russian invasion because peace in the region of Europe was essential for global stability.

"Such a blatant attack on a country's sovereignty is a threat to all of us and that's why we too have a role to play," Ms Ardern said.

In a Palm Sunday homily, Pope Francis called for an Easter truce in Ukraine and, in an apparent reference to Russia, questioned the value of planting a victory flag "on a heap of rubble".

"Put the weapons down! Let An Easter truce start. But not to re-arm and resume combat but a truce to reach peace through real negotiations open to some sacrifices for the good of the people," he said.

"What kind of victory would be one that plants a flag on a heap of rubble?"

At a sermon in Moscow, Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia's Orthodox Church and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, called on people to rally around the authorities.

Reuters

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Ukraine latest: White House press secretary says Ukrainians 'won the battle of Kyiv', World Bank forecasts war will slash economy in half - ABC News

Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska opened up in a recent interview with Vogue about the early days of Russia's invasion and how her country is trying to move forward.

"There had been a lot of talk, everywhere, about a possible invasion," Zelenska, who has been married to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy since 2003, said about the first day of the invasion. "But until the last minute it was impossible to believe that this would happenin the twenty-first century? In the modern world? I woke up, sometime between 4 and 5 a.m., because of aclunk. I didnt immediately realize it was an explosion. I didnt understand what it could be. My husband wasnt in bed. But when I got up, I saw him at once, already dressed, in a suit as usual (this was the last time Id see him in a suit and a white shirtfrom then on it was military). 'It started.' Thats all he said."

When asked about her "mix of personal and civic feelings", Zelenska responded by pointing out what she believes was Russian President Vladimir Putin's "fatal mistake."

"The war immediately combined the personal and public," Zelenska said. "And this is probably the fatal mistake of the tyrant who attacked us. We are all Ukrainians first, and then everything else. He wanted to divide us, to shatter us, to provoke internal confrontation, but it is impossible to do this with Ukrainians. When one of us is tortured, raped, or killed, we feel that we all are being tortured, raped, or killed. We do not need propaganda to feel civic consciousness, and to resist."

Zelenska praised the way that Ukrainian women have responded to the challenges of war and told multiple stories about heroism shown by Ukrainian women who helped save lives while protecting their own children.

Zelenska also reiterated her husband's call for a "no-fly zone" to be established by the international community over Ukraine.

"We asked to close the sky above us so that Ukrainians would not perish. But NATO considered this to be a direct conflict with Russia," Zelenska said. "So, can I say now that Russia alone is to blame for further deaths? Rhetorical question. You ask if this is the right move for the United States. I sayand this is not only true for the United Statesgive a tough answer to the actions of the aggressor or the aggressor will be encouraged to move."

Zelenska added, "Russia knows that the West will not cover the sky, and this fact encourages it to commit atrocities."

When asked what gives her hope throughout the Russian invasion, Zelenska pointed to her family.

"My familyjust like every Ukrainianand my compatriots: incredible people who organized to help the army and help each other," Zelenska said. "Now all Ukrainians are the army. Everyone does what they can. There are stories about grandmothers who bake bread for the army just because they feel this call. They want to bring victory closer."

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Ukraine's first lady recalls moment she realized her country was at war: LIVE UPDATES - Fox News

No war crimes case is easy, but the task of indicting Vladimir Putin at the International Criminal Court (ICC) appears to be straightforward.

There are two key elements necessary to charge a commander-in-chief with war crimes. First are the crimes themselves. Second, the chain-of-command to the top. In the case of Russias Ukraine invasion, both seem clear.

The horrors of Bucha and a slew of towns north of Kyiv are gruesome and widespread. They are also, crucially, being recorded in real time. A major problem for war crimes trials in the past was that evidence had to be sifted from chaotic battlefields years after the fact.

This is not the case here. Ukraines own investigators are already on the ground, alongside specialists from The Hague. Last month the ICC opened an online evidence portal, inviting ordinary Ukrainians to become part of the investigation process. Russia is not a member of the ICC, but Ukraine has given the court jurisdiction for crimes on its territory, no matter who commits them.

The first stage of an indictment is to match evidence of atrocities to records showing which units committed them.

For this, video of shattered Russian tanks and abandoned camps will be scrutinised to see which formations were at the scene of the crime. Tiny details can be important, such as graffiti left by a retreating unit, information from abandoned laptops or regimental flashes on discarded uniforms.

Nato can play a role here by giving access to intelligence it has collected. Last week Germanys security service, the BND, released chilling intercepts to its parliament. They included a blunt instruction from one Russian commander: First question the soldiers, then shoot them.

Spy planes and satellites have kept track of Russias order of battle, some of it gleaned from Russians themselves. As the BND has found, many Russian headquarters give orders in the clear. The United States is not an ICC member, but Congress has passed a bipartisan resolution calling for cooperation with the court, which should release an avalanche of information.

War crimes evidence works like a mosaic. Prosecutors combine forensics with witness accounts, video and intelligence to produce a complete picture of the crimes and who committed them.

When prosecutors have established a pattern of atrocities, the next step is moving up the command chain. Normally this is difficult. The two most high-profile war crimes trials of recent years, against Serbias Slobodan Miloevi and Liberias Charles Taylor, had problems linking these leaders to ragtag militias operating in distant forests and mountains.

By contrast, Russias chain of command needs no investigation because it is a matter of public record. Its military regulations set out the responsibilities of its generals, while Article 87 of the constitution names the president as supreme commander of the armed forces.

War law gives no immunity to presidents, as Miloevi and Taylor found out. Nor is responsibility diluted the further up the command chain you go. If anything, the supreme commander is the most responsible, because he has the most power.

The ICC can charge Russias high command with war crimes and crimes against humanity without having to prove they ordered these crimes. It is enough to show that crimes happened and commanders did nothing to prevent them, or punish those responsible. Prosecutors are likely to argue that, with its continuing bombardment of Mariupol, Russia has shown no interest in preventing or punishing even the worst atrocities.

In the past the ICC has started investigations at the top, rather than first charging lower-level commanders. When it began investigating atrocities in Libyas Arab spring revolution a decade ago, the countrys leader Muammar Gaddafi was on the very first indictment.

Less clear is whether anyone will be charged with genocide. Rightly called the crime of crimes, genocide requires evidence of intent, which is a procedural labyrinth prosecutors may for now avoid.

More complicated still is bringing a charge of the crime of aggression. The charge is arguably the easiest to prove, because it refers to any war, such as Russias Ukraine invasion, launched in violation of the UN Charter. However, the ICC is not part of the UN. And for this particular charge, ICC rules dictate it cannot indict those from non-member states like Russia.

Available evidence suggests that, as with Gaddafi, ICC prosecutors could bring charges against Russias top brass in a matter of months.

Yet it is possible nobody will ever be brought to trial. The ICC has no police force or ready means to get suspects to The Hague. Western powers could tie existing sanctions to Russia handing over indictees, but that is an uncertain path. For now, investigators labouring amid the mud and blood of Bucha do so despite knowing that justice may never be done.

Chris Stephen is the author of Judgement Day: The Trial of Slobodan Miloevi (Atlantic Books, 2004)

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Witnessing atrocities in real time in Ukraine is changing everything - The Guardian

A monument for Taras Shevchenko is symbolically protected by bandages in Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv. Nickolai Hammar/NPR hide caption

A monument for Taras Shevchenko is symbolically protected by bandages in Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv.

BORODYANKA, Ukraine In the devastated town of Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv, Natasha Romanenko has pushed paper into the bullet holes peppered across her windows.

It's to keep the cold out, she tells us.

"You can see, there are holes where they were shooting directly in our window when we were hiding there," she says, speaking through NPR's interpreter.

When Russian forces invaded and occupied the town, the damage was devastating. Ukrainian officials say Russia deliberately bombed civilian areas and that hundreds are still missing more than a week after the invading forces withdrew. Now, crews are sifting through the wreckage to see what and who survived.

We start to see signs of the destruction on the drive from Kyiv into Borodyanka. What should be a quick trip now takes hours as destroyed bridges mean more cars crowd onto the few reliable routes, and the military checkpoints create long lines on narrow roads.

A destroyed building in the town of Borodyanka. Nickolai Hammar/NPR hide caption

We pass through the village of Dmitriovka and see a burned-out car near homes reduced to rubble. A little farther on, there is a flattened tank.

Then, another destroyed car that has the word "children" spray-painted in Russian along the side door.

We arrive on Borodyanka's main street Central Street with a humanitarian convoy that immediately begins handing out food and water.

It's here that we meet Natasha. She and her family spent a month hiding in a cramped, dark root cellar.

"What did we eat? Mostly potatoes," she says. "I had some spare oil, and I have a cow, so I had milk. And I went to my neighbor, I gave her some milk. She gave me some other things, some cheese. So this is how we survived. Our cow saved us."

Natasha takes us to the cellar, which is mostly filled with crates of potatoes. She explains that at night, they would lay a carpet over the crates and try to sleep on top of that, keeping warm under all the blankets they had.

In the final days of the occupation, Natasha says, a Russian soldier confronted her. She had ventured out to milk her cow, and he thought she was scouting Russian troop locations. She says he took her out to the middle of the road and pointed a gun to her head.

Natasha Romanenko and her family spent a month hiding from Russian forces in Borodyanka. Nickolai Hammar/NPR hide caption

"He was threatening me," she says. "And what did I say to him? I said I just wish one thing: that he would see my face for the rest of his days, so he would never forget what he's done here."

The soldier spoke to someone else on his radio. Then, Natasha says, he let her go.

As the aid workers move through the main street, we break from the group, and the scale of the destruction starts to sink in. It's utter devastation everywhere you look.

There's an apartment building blackened from flames, with the middle collapsed from the bombing. The windows in all the storefronts have shattered and roofs have collapsed. There are burned vehicles in the streets, and most of the power lines are down and frayed on the ground.

Across from the destroyed apartment building, there's a small park with a monument in the middle. On top sits a giant bust of Taras Shevchenko, the famous Ukrainian poet. Bullet holes pierce his forehead.

The tall pillar that the bust rests on is cracked and crumbling from all the shrapnel. Three policemen are holding a ladder while another man stands nearby, ready to climb to the top.

Apartment complexes burned and blackened by flames from bombing in Borodyanka, northwest of Kyiv Nickolai Hammar/NPR hide caption

Yaroslav Halubchik is an artist from Kyiv and has come here to help create an ad hoc art project an instant memorial of sorts.

"We're calling it 'The Curing of Shevchenko' or 'The Healing of Shevchenko,' " he says.

Yaroslav steps up the ladder and starts to wrap a big gauze bandage around the bust's giant head. As he does that, a man in a Ukrainian military uniform comes up and asks him what he's doing.

Yaroslav explains that it's performance art, and the soldier seems satisfied. It turns out, he was worried that they were repairing it.

"In this case, it is vital that we keep this monument as it is right now, it shouldn't be touched," the soldier says. He adds that it's especially important because of who Shevchenko was.

"This is really important, because we all know that Shevchenko and other Ukrainian poets were always enemies of Russia," he explains. "I really hope that people will rebuild everything here as it was, but we should keep this as it is now."

We ask his name. He's Yevhen Nyshchuk the former Ukrainian minister of culture. He's in the military now and based nearby.

A monument at the entrance of the town of Borodyanka. Nickolai Hammar/NPR hide caption

We keep making our way down the main street. Building after building has collapsed from the bombardment of tank and rocket fire.

In the nearby town of Bucha, bodies were found in the street. Here, with so many collapsed structures, the worry is that bodies are still trapped underneath.

Several cranes carefully pick up debris, as recovery teams look for remains. There's a playground in front of one of the buildings and a woman is sitting there on a bench next to a slide, watching the recovery work.

Her name is Ludmila Boiko.

"My sister and her son lived here. This is what's left of them," she says, pointing to a pile of old notebooks. "His mother kept his old notebooks from school."

Ludmila found them scattered around the debris of the apartment building. That and some pictures, she says, are the only things she's found.

Ludmila's sister Olyna Vahnenko was 56. Her nephew, Yuri, was 24. He had just graduated from college.

Ludmila Boiko near a collapsed building in Borodyanka. Nickolai Hammar/NPR hide caption

They'd left their apartment and sought shelter. But on March 1, during a break in the shelling and bombing, Olyna and Yuri went back. Ludmila says they talked on the phone, and Olyna said they had been able to shower and eat some food.

An hour later, Russian forces destroyed the building.

"Our friends were trying to help us, but for four days, it was a huge fire here," Ludmila says. "And so first they were trying to fight the fire. They didn't have a chance to do excavations right away."

When the fire stopped, people started trying to look for survivors. Then shelling began again, and they had to flee.

After that, she says Russian forces were posted here, and nobody could get near the building.

Searching couldn't resume until a month after the attack. So Ludmila sat, and waited.

"I just want to see how they discover all the bodies that they assume should be there, and then probably I would like to do something like with DNA testing because I want to know for sure what happened," she says.

"I was so close with them that I don't even know how I should live now. How should I live in this place?"

Rescuers search a collapsed building in Borodyanka. Nickolai Hammar/NPR hide caption

The crane continues to slowly remove rubble from a collapsed building.

Soon, workers discover a woman's body. Ludmila climbs up the pile of rubble to look.

The body is removed, covered and placed next to three others found earlier that day.

Ludmila goes back to the playground and sits down, continuing her vigil.

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This is what a Ukraine town looks like after Russian troops withdraw - NPR

WARSAW, Poland (AP) Days before Polands Independence Day in November, vandals painted the blue-and-yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag on monuments in Krakow. The vandalism, which took place as Russia massed troops near Ukraines border, looked as if Ukrainians were defacing memorials to Polish national heroes.

Yet some clues suggested otherwise.

The flags colors were reversed, with the yellow on top of the blue and one offensive message was in an unnatural mix of Russian and Ukrainian. Though prosecutors are still investigating, Polish and Ukrainian authorities believe it was most likely a Russian-inspired attempt to trigger ethnic hostility between Ukrainians and Poles.

Polish and Ukrainian authorities have for years accused Russia of trying to provoke hostility between their neighboring nations as part of a broader effort to divide and destabilize the West and the concerns have gained greater urgency since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Poland and Ukraine are neighbors and allies but they share a difficult history of oppression and bloodshed, and those historical traumas sometimes rise to the surface.

Poland has also accepted large numbers of Ukrainian refugees, creating fears that could become another wedge issue that Russia could exploit.

The Russian efforts to sow divisions between the Poles and Ukrainians, particularly by means of exploiting historical issues, are as old as time, said Stanislaw Zaryn, the spokesman for Polands security services.

Russia has redoubled them since the war began, he said. And they are more dangerous now because the war is going on and it can affect more people than before.

Reacting to the November incident, the Ukrainian Embassy in Warsaw immediately denounced it as shameful and a provocation aimed at harming the good neighborly relations between Ukraine and Poland.

More than 2.5 million Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Poland since the war began, and while some move on to other countries more than half have remained. Poles have reacted with an outpouring of help and goodwill and the government has extended to the Ukrainians the same rights to education and health care that Poles have.

Never Again, an anti-racism association in Poland, has documented several attempts to stoke aversion to the Ukrainian refugees and even to openly justify Russian President Vladimir Putins invasion. In some cases those behind the messages are far-right Polish activists or politicians with pro-Kremlin views, according to a report the organization published Thursday.

These groups do not enjoy widespread public support, but they do their best to make Poles and Ukrainians quarrel, spread hateful content, conspiracy theories and false information, primarily in the internet space, it said.

Larysa Lacko, an expert on countering disinformation at NATO, said Russia is known to exploit refugees as a wedge issue because it touches on the economy, race and other sensitive issues, and that she has also observed Russian disinformation talking about historical grievances.

Western Ukraine was once under Polish rule, with Ukrainians largely subservient to a Polish landowning class.

Resentments erupted in ethnic bloodshed during World War II, when the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a nationalist military formation, slaughtered tens of thousands of Poles in the Nazi-occupied Polish regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.

Poland also has a difficult history with Moscow. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union carved up Poland at the start of World War II in 1939, invading and occupying the country based on a secret clause in the notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Poles suffered atrocities inflicted by both occupying states. The Nazis set up death camps and concentration camps where they murdered Jews and they killed many other Polish citizens as well. Meanwhile, the Soviets sent some Poles to Siberia and murdered 22,000 Polish officers in the Katyn massacres of 1940.

Even after the war, Poland was forced to live under Moscows oppressive control for the decades of the Cold War.

It still stings Poles to remember the Soviet Union denied the truth of the Katyn killings for decades, forbidding Poles from publicly commemorating the victims. When the Polish wartime government-in-exile asked the International Red Cross to investigate the Nazi disclosures of the Soviet crimes, Moscow smeared the Polish leaders as Fascist collaborators much as they have falsely accused Ukraine today of being a Nazi state.

Some Poles, especially those who lived through the war, remember those times and carry a lingering hostility to both Russians and Ukrainians.

One false claim Polish authorities say Russians are spreading is that Poland seeks to reclaim Lviv and other territory in western Ukraine that once was Polish. Those claims are untrue, the Polish Foreign Ministry said in a series of tweets seeking to debunk false claims. Poland will never accept the annexation of any territory belonging to an independent state.

Another is that Poland, a NATO ally hosting thousands of U.S. troops, is working to set the West against Russia.

That claim was made recently by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, the current deputy chairman of the Russian security council.

Now the interests of the citizens of Poland have been sacrificed due to the Russophobia of mediocre politicians and their puppeteers from across the ocean with clear signs of senile insanity, Medvedev wrote recently on Telegram, a social media app popular in Russia and Ukraine.

Zaryn, the Polish security services spokesman, also pointed to a Polish Facebook page called A Ukrainian is NOT my brother, whose posts call on followers not to forget the Ukrainian massacres of Poles in the 1940s.

The page was created less than a month after Russia annexed Ukraines Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and has nearly 55,000 followers. In recent weeks posts have criticized Polish authorities for their strong support for Ukraine.

Zaryn said evidence points to it being run by a woman with ties to a pro-Kremlin party, Zmiana, in Poland. The former leader of the party, Mateusz Piskorski, has worked for Russian news outlets RT and Sputnik and has been charged with espionage for Russia and China.

Polands government has been taking steps to protect itself, with public warnings about the disinformation attempts and expulsions of dozens of suspected Russian agents and one arrest.

Days after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Polish authorities arrested a man they accused of being an agent of the Russian military intelligence agency, GRU, in Przemysl, a key entry points for Ukrainian refugees, as he sought to cross into Ukraine.

In late March, Poland ordered the expulsion of 45 suspected Russian intelligence officers they accused of using diplomatic status as a cover to operate in the country.

The illegal activities of these diplomats can also pose a threat to those people who left their country to flee the war and found protection in our country, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lukasz Jasina said.

At a moment of huge solidarity in Poland and elsewhere with Ukrainians, disinformation is limited in its impact, argued Lacko, the NATO expert working to counter disinformation.

Given the atrocities on the ground, its harder to fall into these sorts of traps, she said.

But officials in Poland say they have to remain on guard, especially if the number of refugees grows, creating the potential for more social anxieties that can be exploited.

___

Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed.

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Poland-Ukraine ties seen as target of Russian disinformation - The Associated Press - en Espaol

After a recent discussion on the Ukraine-Russia war became heated and even "abusive" in herWhatsApp group for church members, Susie Su was forced to put a ban on the topic.

The 69-year-oldTaiwanese Australian, who helps to manage the social media group comprising some 50 Chinese Christiansin New South Wales, said shewanted to maintain peace after realising the debate was dividingher community.

With members hailing from mainland China, Malaysia and Hong Kong, the community always had robust conversations but it was the first time she had to intervene since the group was created two years ago.

Ms Su said that last month, a minister from a churchwas accused of advocating pro-Russia views after he saidUkrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy should surrender to Russia to protect civilians in the war-torn country.

Many Ukraine supporters in the chatroom argued that Russia's invasion had caused the deaths of those civilians.

"Invasion is wrong. Our group has church members who come fromChina. They believe China should not defend Russia," she said.

"I believe as Christianwe should be against the invasion, and pursue democracy and freedom."

But when the church minister was verbally abused by another member, Ms Su halted the discussion.

Ms Su said she found many people who were expressing pro-Russia viewshad been influenced by articles on Chinese social media, and some echoed language from Beijing.

China hasattempted to castitself as a neutral party and refused to condemn Russia's action or call it an invasion.

Last month,Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian blamedNATO for pushing Russia-Ukraine tensions to "breaking point", while Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Le Yuchengsaid the root cause of the crisis layin the Cold War mentality of the West.

Ms Su said she hada lot of sympathy for Ukrainians and she believed China shouldsupport Ukraine as much as possible without directlyintervening in the war.

As Russia's invasion has continued, the ABC has witnessed heated discussions on several Chinese social media platforms that are popular among Chinese-speaking communities in Australia.

Several Chinese Australians have told the ABC theyfeel frustrated seeingfriends, colleagues and even family members arguing about the war on social media.

Yang Han, a Sydney-based former Chinese diplomat and political commentator, was shocked when he saw pro-Russia comments piling upin a WeChat group where hundreds of Chinese Australians shared information about the pandemic.

Since the war broke out in February, the chatroom has instead been dominated by Chinese news articles and discussions about the war.

"It gives me a unique look at how [some other Chinese people] view the war in Ukraine," Mr Yang said.

He said he decided to translate some of the pro-Russiacomments and articles shared in the WeChat group into English and postthem on his Twitter account to highlight how some of the propaganda from Beijing was influencing Chinese Australian migrants.

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After a member from the WeChat room discovered the translations, he was removed from the group and then singled out by China'sstate-run media.

China's nationalist tabloid Global Times accused Mr Yang of being a paid agent of anti-China organisations with a goal of plotting a "colour revolution".

Mr Yang rejected the claim and said he was concerned China's censorship might influence the Australian community.

"The group members are Australians," he said, adding their opinions could affect politics in Australia.

Mr Yang saidthe Chinese state media articles werefuelling frustration during discussions amongfamily and friends.

Some Australians of Chinese descent told the ABC that polarised views on the war hadoften led to unpleasant conversations between husbands and wives, parents and children, and colleagues at work.

Mr Yang said his relatives in China avoided talking about the Ukraine war with him on WeChat because it was a sensitive topic that could damage their relationship.

"They know what they can and can't say otherwise, we may have a fight on WeChat," he said.

David Goodman, director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, said Chinese-speakingcommunities had different values and backgrounds.

He said supporting Russia was "a logical nationalist position in China", given that Beijing declared in Februaryits partnership with Moscow had "no limits" and"the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

"The prime conflict [portrayed by the media] would seem to be China versus the anglophone world the key alliance of the US, Australia and the UK," Professor Goodman said.

Feng Chongyi, an associateprofessor in Chinese studiesat the University of Technology Sydney anda democracy activist, said the views withinChinese-speaking communities in Australia were very diverse because people had different ideologies.

He said some Chinese Australians with pro-Russian views could also be influenced by anti-America propaganda and censorship ofanti-Russia content on popular social media platforms.

Earlier this year, Jin Xing, China's first openly transgender dancer, who has more than 13 million fans on China's Twitter-like social media platform Weibo, called the Russian President "a crazy man". Soon after, her post was deletedand her account was suspended.

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Why the Ukraine-Russia war is dividing the Australian Chinese community - ABC News

In a career that stretches back 40 years, Sean Penn has had many great roles, from Jeff Spicoli to Harvey Milk, from the surly teen sociopath of Bad Boys to the soulful death-row sociopath of Dead Man Walking. Yet theres a role Penn is now playing that he has embraced with fierce commitment and skill, but it still doesnt look very good on him. Thats the role of The American Civilian Who Cares About the War in Ukraine More Than You Do.

Youve seen him play the role at press conferences and in interviews with cable-TV news hosts. Thatchy-haired and beleaguered, sitting there in his green CORE Army jacket brandishing his thousand-yard Method stare, his cigarette voice on the verge of cracking in literally every sentence, Penn, gripped with conviction, speaks in a deliberate, ever-so-slightly strangled monotone that makes it sound like hes working hard to control everything hes saying. Otherwise he might just bust a gasket of emotion, man!

Hes a great actor, and the message is clear: Sean Penn knows the stakes. He gets the gravitas, more than you and I put together. Penn, presenting his analysis of the Ukraine situation, lays out his case with a solemn awestruck once-more-unto-the-breach fervor, and its obvious, as you listen to him, that he knows a great deal. Hes got the detail at his fingertips about how many weeks of training it takes to fly an F-15, about Level 4 Body Armor, about how two squadrons at a cost of $300 million could end this thing. Penn was in Ukraine shooting a documentary about the country and its travails back in November, when the Russian invasion was just a gleam in Vladimir Putins eye. He was there, as well, during the first few days of fighting, but was forced to leave for the safety of himself and his crew. Hes returned since to meet with the countrys president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Youve heard of profiles in courage? Penn makes Zelenskyy sound like his BFF in courage.

I should say, right up front, that Ive had incredible admiration for Penn in his role as activist and organizer. Last year, the compelling documentary Citizen Penn chronicled his offscreen activities, notably his decade-long mission to improve the lives of the people of Haiti. As I wrote in my review, He walks the walk, instead of just talking the talk. Where other celebrities preach about saving the world in self-righteous signifiers, he takes action by going on the scene (to Baghdad during the Iraq War, to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, to Haiti following the catastrophic 2010 earthquake), and by staying there long after the disaster-relief-volunteer-as-photo-op window has closed. In going to Ukraine, Penn has taken serious risks, and he has, in general, devoted huge swatches of his life to helping others when too many entertainment figures are just looking for the next paycheck. At the same time, I pointed out theres a way that Sean Penns trouble-spot dedication can dovetail a little too exquisitely with his image, creating a kind of aging-James-Dean-of-the-killing-fields persona.

The problem with his Ukraine activism, however, isnt the persona. Its what hes saying. On Feb. 25, the day after the invasion, Penn, presenting himself as the moral conscience of the nation (ours), with a touch of Lincoln-meets-FDR-meets-JFK stentorian poetry to his words, said, Ukraine is the tip of the spear for the democratic embrace of dreams. If we allow it to fight alone, our soul as America is lost.

I like that first sentence; it captures the stakes of what Ukraines fight against Russia means for the world today. But I was no fan of the second sentence. By the time that Penn said it, President Biden had already committed America to supporting Ukraine in this war, and the media was already brimming over with analysis of what, exactly, the United States should do in response to Russias aggression. With Putin rattling the saber of a nuclear threat, the cooler heads that prevailed all appeared to agree: We cannot put troops on the ground. The risks are too great. Putin is too much of a loose cannon. (His decision to launch this cataclysmic horror of a war does not appear to be fully rational; so who knows how far his irrationality would extend?) No one was arguing that Ukraine should fight without the commitment sanctions, weapons, the collective ostracizing of Russia of the United States and most of the Western world. But waging the fight alone is what the people of Ukraine needed to do, and have done, with staggering courage and effectiveness.

But with that initial statement, the template of Sean Penns message had been set. He was in Ukraine, he saw what was happening, he had the gravitas to understand the magnitude of the moment, and he, therefore, could go on television and announce, with the fearless clarity of absolutism, what our policy should be. If we allow it to fight alone, our soul as America is lost. (And who, incidentally, would be doing this fighting? Sean Penns kids? Yours? Mine?)

The second act of Penns Ukraine drama arrived on the wings of the Oscars. A rumor was circulating that President Zelenskyy might appear on the Oscar telecast to make a statement about Ukraine. Penn, reflecting the image politics of Hollywood far more than he knew, seized on this possibility as a defining moral event, especially when it began to leak out that Zelenskyy, in all likelihood, would not be part of the ceremony. (He wound up on the Grammys instead.) If the Academy has elected not to do it, said Penn, if presenters have elected not to pursue the leadership in Ukraine who are taking bullets and bombs for us, along with the Ukrainian children who they are trying to protect, then I think every single one of those people, and every bit of that decision, will have been the most obscene moment in all of Hollywood history.

Really? More obscene than the 50s blacklist? More obscene than the racism of The Birth of a Nation? Than the revelation of Harvey Weinsteins long-enabled monstrousness? Than the fact that Around the World in 80 Days won best picture? For good measure, Penn added the actorly flourish, I myself, if it comes back to it, when I return, I will smelt mine in public. He meant his Oscar. Werner Herzog once threatened to cook and eat his shoe, and did, but that was a joke. If Sean Penn ever smelts his Oscar in public, I want a front-row seat.

The difference between Ukraine and the other trouble spots, like Haiti, that Penn has been to is that in those cases, in addition to offering humanitarian aid through the organization he founded, CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort), Penn was shining a light on crisis situations that needed more light. The mass media tended to dip in and out of them. From the start, though, the whole world has been watching Ukraine. In a way, Penn is preaching to the choir. Who doesnt think that we should be helping Ukraine, or that the stakes of this war, in terms of the shape of our world, are anything less than elemental? If Penn simply agrees with the current American policy, then theres no real point to his making himself a spokesperson. So implicitly he has to go further: to nudging the U.S. toward greater action.

Yet has he really earned the right to do that? Shooting his documentary, Penn has been an eyewitness in Ukraine, no more and no less, but hes far from the only one, and he doesnt possess any special knowledge of the logistics or the ethical dimensions that define this war. What he has is his self-appointed fervor, which in this case feels inseparable from the drama he instinctively cultivates as an actor. Offscreen, he has long been an embattled figure (his first war was against the paparazzi). He sees himself as someone who wants to make a difference, and thats admirable that is, until it becomes self-glorifying.

And frankly, I dont want to see an actor, no matter how valiant his efforts at humanitarian relief have been, advocating for policies that could lead us closer to a nuclear conflict, all because it makes him feel like hes seizing the day. Penn, to demonstrate his ability to rise above Americas ideological fractures, made a point of going on Sean Hannitys Fox News show, even though he admitted he didnt trust Hannity. No one wants to see a nuclear conflict, he told the right-wing host. At the same time, if only one bully is going to be able to use those weapons as a threat, we gotta rethink what were doing.

Okay, whatever that means. It sounds, frankly, like when it comes to Ukraine, Penn has a jones for speaking in terms of escalation, because thats the strategy that best expresses the fervor of his commitment. Hannity, who Penn is right not to trust, started going on about how Democrats start wars (like Vietnam and Afghanistan) that they dont have the stomach to finish. He talked about drones, Stinger missiles, MiGs. Fight the war to win it, said Hannity. We agree, said Penn. The actor added, in reference to Putin, If there is a God, there will be vengeance beyond all possible comprehension. I dont doubt Sean Penns commitment, but if he wants to keep making public statements about the war in Ukraine, maybe he should think about sounding a little less like hes in a movie.

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Ukraine Needs a Lot of Things, but Sean Penns Drama Isnt One of Them (Column) - Variety

At the same time, taming an interdependent world will require working across ideological lines. Washington should ease off on the promotion of democracy and human rights abroad and the Biden administration should refrain from its tendency to articulate a geopolitical vision that too neatly divides the world into democracies and autocracies. Strategic and economic expedience will at times push the United States to partner with repressive regimes; moderating oil prices, for example, may require collaboration with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

Even though the United States will continue teaming up with its traditional democratic allies in Europe and Asia, many of the worlds democracies will avoid taking sides in a new era of East-West rivalry. Indeed, Brazil, India, Israel, South Africa and other democracies have been sitting on the fence when it comes to responding to Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Russia clearly poses the most immediate threat to geopolitical stability in Eurasia, but China, due to its emergence as a true competitor of the United States, still poses the greater geopolitical challenge in the longer term. Now that Russia and China are regularly teaming up, they could together constitute an opposing bloc far more formidable than its Soviet forebear. Accordingly, the United States should exploit opportunities to put distance between Moscow and Beijing, following the lead of the quintessential realists Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who in the 1970s weakened the Communist bloc by driving a wedge between China and the Soviet Union.

The United States should play both sides. Russias invasion of Ukraine marks a fundamental breach with the Atlantic democracies, yet the West cannot afford to completely turn its back on Russia; too much is at stake. As during the Cold War, Washington will need a hybrid strategy of containment and engagement. Russia should remain in the penalty box for now, with the United States pushing back against the Kremlins territorial expansionism and other aggressive behavior by reinforcing NATOs eastern flank and maintaining harsh economic sanctions.

But Washington should also remain on the lookout for opportunities to engage Moscow. Its invasion of Ukraine has just made Russia an economic and strategic dependent of China; Mr. Putin will not relish being Xi Jinpings sidekick. The United States should exploit the Kremlins discomfort with becoming Chinas junior partner by signaling that Russia has a Western option.

Assuming an eventual peace settlement in Ukraine that permits the scaling back of sanctions, the Western democracies should remain open to cautious and selective cooperation with Moscow. Areas of potential collaboration include furthering nuclear and conventional arms control, sharing best practices and technologies on alternatives to fossil fuels, and jointly developing rules of the road to govern military and economic activity in the Arctic.

Russia needs China more than China needs Russia, so Washington should also seek to pull Beijing away from Moscow. Beijings ambiguous response to the invasion of Ukraine suggests at least a measure of discomfort with the economic and geopolitical disruption that has been produced by Russian recklessness. Yet Beijing continues to benefit from Russian energy and strategic cooperation and from the fact that Mr. Putin is forcing the United States to focus on Europe, thereby stalling the U.S. pivot to Asia. Nonetheless, Washington should keep an eye out for opportunities to work with Beijing in areas of common interest trade, climate change, North Korea, digital governance, public health to improve relations, tackle global problems and potentially weaken the bond between China and Russia.

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Opinion | America Needs to Be Strategic About the War in Ukraine - The New York Times

David Gilmour, of Pink Floyd, performs live on stage at Madison Square Garden on April 12, 2016. Matthew Eisman/Getty Images hide caption

David Gilmour, of Pink Floyd, performs live on stage at Madison Square Garden on April 12, 2016.

When the invasion of Ukraine began, singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk cut his U.S. tour short, returned home and took up arms to defend his homeland.

A few days later, the Boombox singer posted a clip on Instagram that showed him in military fatigues, a New York Yankees baseball cap and a rifle performing "The Red Viburnum In The Meadow," a Ukrainian protest song written during World War I.

"A little motivation from the leader of the group 'Boombox' Andriy Khlyvnyuk," he wrote.

Now, rock legends Pink Floyd have taken Khlyvnyuk's vocals and composed a charity single around it the band's first new original music since 1994's "Division Bell."

The track, "Hey Hey Rise Up," features 90 seconds of David Gilmour's string-bending solo, and Floyd drummer Nick Mason. (Needless to say, estranged bassist Roger Waters is noticeably absent.)

The title references the last line of the protest song: "Hey hey, rise up and rejoice."

"We, like so many, have been feeling the fury and the frustration of this vile act of an independent, peaceful democratic country being invaded and having its people murdered by one of the world's major powers," Gilmour, who has a Ukrainian daughter-in-law and grandchildren, said in a statement on the band's website.

"Then I saw this incredible video on Instagram, where he stands in a square in Kyiv with this beautiful gold-domed church and sings in the silence of a city with no traffic or background noise because of the war," the statement added. "It was a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music."

Gilmour said he spoke to Khlyvnyuk, who is recovering from a shrapnel injury, and played him a snippet.

"He gave me his blessing," Gilmour said.

The proceeds from the single will go to Ukrainian humanitarian relief, the band said.

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How (members of) Pink Floyd reunited to record a song for Ukraine - NPR