Category Archives: Ukraine

Wounded people, and wounded cities.

Ukraine today is a traumatised nation, but one with a deep, burning anger the sort of fury that comes from a person, or a country, knowing that an injustice is being inflicted upon them.

And it ismatched by a fierce determination that comes from knowing that you are fighting for your survival.

If the Russians lay down their weapons, their president Vladimir Putin will need only to manage his leadership elite, being unaccountable in real terms to the people of Russia.

If the Ukrainians lay down their arms, they lose their country.

Whatever is left of the military might that Russia has brought to bear when trying to push into the capital last year would be re-energised in yet another attempt to conquer Kyiv.

Since the invasion began, Russia has spent billions of dollars and lost thousands of lives, yet itshows no inclination that it hasgiven up.

Putin's family are not dying. Cannon fodder they are not. His children, his siblings, his nieces and nephews are nowhere near the human meat grinder that is the battle for Bakhmut and so many other parts of this 1300-kilometrefront line.

Hundreds of Russians lie dead in the place where they were shot, slowly becoming skeletons in this tragic reprise of the trenches of World Wars I and II.

Putin has not given up his ambition to claim Ukraine, to make it again part of aSoviet-era-type empire.

Driving around Ukraine for the past two weeks revealed to me the extent of devastation that Putin's war has wrought upon this country so rich in history, culture and potential.

Some cities have been both traumatised and hollowed out. Kharkiv, for example, which I visited over the last week, is a sad and battered city.

Once a thriving European university town, today street after street is destroyed. Entire neighbourhoods are now unliveable and abandoned.

In the centre of the city, many buildings have had their shattered windows boarded up, but many remain exactly as they were when Putin's army fired hundreds of missiles into the CBD and residential neighbourhoods.

What were once-thriving neighbourhoods are now ghost towns, with barely a person to be seen. High-rise residential buildings have had entire fronts torn off them by missiles.

I never thought I would feel sorry for a city, but this one certainly evokes that response. Vast numbers of the residents fled last year when the city came under attack, and in some neighbourhoods you barely see a person.

In one street earlyone evening, the only person I saw was a man taking his chihuahua for a walk before the nightly curfew came in at 11pm. One man, one dogand a city that was once one of the glories of Ukraine, now reduced to a shell of itself.

Putin has not just killed people, he's wounded the souls of cities and neighbourhoods, but he has not killed these cities.

There are large apartment buildingsabandoned after being hit by missiles and one can only imagine the horror for the people who had been living there when the missiles hit.

While in Kharkiv, I was shown the video of the explosion when a missile hit a large office building in the centre of the city. The missile tore off the corner of the building in a huge fireball.

In the video you can see a car preparing to turn the corner, then the massive explosion. The people in the car would have been instantly incinerated.

Russia rained missiles down upon the city. What you see when driving around Kharkiv conclusively puts a lie to the claim by Vladimir Putin and his apologists such as Sergei Lavrov and Dmitry Medvedev that Russia has been targeting infrastructure facilities and not residential premises.

Many of the residential buildings being destroyed at the moment in Ukraine and many of the civilians being killed are being killed by Russian guided aerial bombs.

These are called guided bombs for a reason. It is, of course, possible that every so often in a war a missile will be misdirected and hit a target for which it was not intended.

However, the thousands of Russian bombs that have hit and killed civilians and civilian targets are not accidental. They are deliberate attempts. They are the deliberate,guided killing of civilians.

And why should the targeting of electricity, power plants, and other infrastructure be seen as any less serious? The reason these are targeted is to try to cause maximum misery and problems for the people who rely on them.

Scores of large apartment buildings have had much of their fronts or sides ripped off from missile hits.

In Kharkiv, air-raid sirens go off frequently through the day andnight.

After 15 months of war, locals are so fatigued that most do not even bother to go to shelters.

When the curfew takes hold in Kharkiv,it takes on an eerie silence.What was one of the most vibrant cities in Europe goes into a foreboding hibernation.

Part of Putin's psychological war clearly relies on the fact that each night, when Ukrainians go to sleep, they cannot know whether missiles will be fired during the night.

While many Ukrainians do not bother anymore to go to bomb shelters, the sirens wreak havoc on institutions such as aged care facilities where staff are required to wake the elderly through the night and try to move them within 10 or 15 minutes into a bomb shelter.

Psychological fear. People never feeling completely comfortable. This is all part of Putin's war.

However, if Putin thinks that the trauma he's imposed on Ukrainians will translate into a military victory, he appears to have badly misread Ukrainians, again.

Over the past two weeks, I've driven from Warsaw to Lviv then Kyiv, to eastern Ukraine, close to the front line at the Donbas, and north to the border between Ukraine and Belarus.

The same determination seems to arise wherever you go and to whomever you speak: Afierce belief, here, is that Ukraine is preparing for the military battle of its life.

All around, you see the reinforcement of both resources and positions and large numbers of soldiers prepared for a looming battle.

So many parts of this country are now in ruin. The World Bank has estimated that, if the war were to stop now, it would cost more than $600 billion to rebuild the country.

Apart from killing Ukrainians, the war has also smashed the economy.

It's depressing in Kharkiv to see shops either with wooden coverings where the windows have been smashed or businesses which have not been shelled but which have closed: Who wants to go out for a coffee when there's a chance missiles will be fired into that cafe?

While the war has smashed much of the regular economy, it hasseen a boost in other less-desirable economic pursuits.

There are now an estimated 80 companies around Ukraine manufacturing drones, which are being used by the Ukrainian army, either for surveillance of Russian soldiers or to drop explosives on Russian positions.

There is also a tragic boom in demand for prosthetics. Ukraine cannot import enough prosthetic arms and legs to meet its current demand.

It's now trying to manufacture its own to try to make the lives of those who have had limbs blown off as manageable as possible.

There's a symmetrical increase in this lamentable new economy on the Russian side.

Putin has announced the need for Russia to build more drones, and the Kremlin has announced that it will allocate about $6 billion towards this.

Until now Russia has been primarily using the so-called Shahid drones made in Iran.

However,Iran complicit in this killing of Ukrainians cannot provide as many of these sinister birds of death as Russia wants. Russia wants these death drones all because of one man.

However, just as there are damaged and hollowed-out cities, so are there wounded and traumatised people.

You'll often see people on crutches, in wheelchairs or wearing prosthetics.

A doctor I spoke to said there had been a 400 per centincrease in the number of Ukrainians needing rehabilitation.

The damage isphysical and psychological:spinal cords, brain injuries, limbs blown off and the less-visible psychological injuries that go with exposure to trauma and the onset of PTSD.

It's hard not to conclude that, even if this war stopped now, that it could take many years, if not generations, to recover.

Just as there are traumatised people, so, too, are there wonderful and inspirational people.

I met one when preparing a story for the ABC's 7.30 program:Nine-year-old Yegor Kravstov, who was trapped for 96 days in Mariupol as the Russian and Ukrainian armies engaged in one of the bloodiest battles so far.

A Russian missile hit his house and the wall collapsed, injuring himselfand his sister, Veronika, 15.

It also injured his grandfather so badly that he was bleeding, and it could not be stopped.

Because of the war going on in the streets around their home, they could not get the grandfather any medical treatment. He died in slow motion.

How does a boy process watching his grandfather bleed to death over three days, an excruciating and undignified death? How does he process the fact that his two dogs were killed? How does he process the fact that, when the family could finally escape, they could not find his only pet that was still alive, his cat.

Remarkably, his uncle, who had stayed in Mariupol longer, found the cat and eventually brought it to Yegor and his family in their new home in western Ukraine.

So many people have been killed here that the media can barely keep up with their stories, but there are many remarkable cases: for example, two women who were killed this week.

What had they been doing that led to their deaths?

They'd been visiting the Museum of Local History in Kupiansk when one of Putin and Lavrov's missiles blew them up.

The responsibility for traumatising this nation lies with Vladimir Putin and those around him and around the world who enable thiscommission of mass misery and war crimes.

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Ukraine is traumatised, but it is filled with a deep, burning anger and its people won't surrender - ABC News

Artem Morozs four-mile race in Central Park in Manhattan this month didnt go as planned.

The former Ukrainian soldier had hoped to run on new prosthetics made for him in the United States, but they werent ready in time for the race. So he walked across the start using prosthetics he had brought from home and was pushed in a wheelchair the rest of the way.

As Morozs guide propelled him up the hill, he spread his arms out wide, like a child imitating an airplanes flight. The corners of a Ukrainian flag tied to the back of the chair rippled in the breeze.

He wasnt running yet, but knew that he would be soon.

Moroz, 44, had been running since he was a child. He and his family live in Irpin, just west of Kyiv, and it was impossible not to run, he said.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Moroz would start his day by running: at sunrise through a nearby forest before going to workat large construction sites, where he was a project manager.

Then war arrived.

Moroz joined the military in late March 2022, after watching Russian soldiers attack Irpin, and became a platoon commander. On Sept. 14, he and his unit were hit by a rocket in the Kherson region. If not for Polish doctors and paramedics, he would have died, he said, but both his legs were amputated below the knee. At first, he couldnt imagine being able to stand again, he said.

While in a hospital in Mykolaiv, he watched a documentary on YouTube about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and the way the city and running community had come back stronger in 2014.

The movie gave him a goal: Run the Boston Marathon, which was then six months away.

Social media facilitated a key connection as he began his pursuit. Nadiia Osmankina, a Ukrainian who came to the United States a year ago for the Boston Marathon and stayed because of the war, saw his story and reached out to him. Running Boston changed her life, she said, and she wanted Moroz to get that same opportunity.

She had connections with both the Ukrainian Running Club in New York City and the president of a foundation, Revived Soldiers Ukraine, that helps wounded Ukrainian service members. The foundations president, Iryna Vashchuk, had been a professional runner and was born in Irpin.

The foundation has a center in Orlando, Fla., where soldiers are fitted for prosthetics. They were able to provide Moroz with both regular walking prosthetics, for daily life, and a specialized type used for running, which are carbon fiber curves that have rubber treads around the edges of the feet.

Moroz arrived late last month and figured that while he was in the United States, he could run some races. The Ukrainian Running Club has a big presence at many races staged by the New York Road Runners, the organizer of the New York City Marathon, and they connected the Road Runners and Moroz so he could pick a race.

But becoming accustomed to new prosthetics, especially running blades, isnt like slipping on a new pair of sneakers.

Its a whole different muscle memory, especially for above-the-knee amputees, said Mary Johnson, who had one leg amputated above the knee after a traumatic injury.

You have to trust that your foot will hit the ground underneath you where you expect, or youll land on the ground, she said.

The Central Park race in early April came just a week after Moroz had arrived in the United States. By then, reality had set in: He wouldnt be competing on his new running blades. Still, he was back out there on a racecourse.

Organizers allowed Moroz and Osmankina to start 10 minutes early so he wouldnt be jostled in the crowded corrals. Except for walking across the starting line, this first race would be in a wheelchair. Some runners from the Ukrainian club cheered at a spot on the course.

Just after he finished, Moroz was already looking ahead to his next race: Boston, in two weeks. Not the marathon, but the five-kilometer race the Boston Athletic Association puts on two days earlier. This year, it fell on the 10th anniversary of the 2013 bombings. Even with his slow early progress, Moroz thought he might be able to run on his new blades in Boston.

Two days before the race, Moroz was practicingon his newwalking prosthetics in Orlando in a parking lot. The fit still wasnt quite right, he said. Small changes, even drinking a glass of water, altered how they would fit. Thats not unusual for amputees. The doctors would tweak one thing and he would try it, and then they would adjust again.

Sean Karpf, who was wounded while serving in the U.S. Army and lost part of one leg below the knee, said that during the first two to three years after his injury, he had needed adjustments every four to six months because of the changes in his residual limb not unusual for amputees.

In the United States, medical insurance doesnt cover adaptive sports equipment, which is not deemed medically necessary and can be expensive. A running blade can cost $12,000 to $15,000. Above-the-knee amputees also need a knee joint, which costs more.

While the Department of Veterans Affairs generally will cover the cost of that type of equipment for American troops injured during their service, the wait can be as long as 18 months. Americans who arent in the military often rely on fund-raising efforts or grants through nonprofit groups. Johnson got her running prosthetic through the Challenged Athletes Foundation, which provides grants for adaptive equipment and camps and clinics for people to learn adaptive sports.

Moroz finally got his running blades a few days before his Boston race, but he wasnt ready to run on them, so he instead used his walking prosthetics for the 5K event. After the race, he put on the running blades for photos at the finish line with Osmankina. He couldnt stand, much less walk, without leaning on someone for balance. When Osmankina stepped away, Moroz nearly fell.

Still, seven months and a day after Moroz had been carried from the battlefield by Polish medics, his life in danger, he ran for the first time, in Boston. It wasnt the marathon, as he had imagined, but that didnt matter. He was running.

Soon, Ukraine will have more capacity to help people injured in the war instead of relying on European and American medical centers. Unbroken, an organization focused on helping Ukrainians heal from traumatic injuries sustained in the war, is retrofitting an old military hospital in Lviv from the Soviet Unionera, said Dr. David Crandell, who is the medical director of the amputee center at a rehabilitation hospital in Boston and part of the World Health Organizations technical working group on rehabilitation for Ukraine. Next month, Unbroken expects to open the former hospital as a center focused on amputee and post-traumatic stress care.

Demand is high. The First Union Hospital in Lviv is receiving 25 to 100 new trauma patients each day, Crandell said. He estimates that the country will have to accommodate 5,000 to 6,000 new amputees because of the war.

You can imagine what Boston saw at the Boston Marathon, every single day for a year, Crandell said.

This race, which Moroz had been inspired to run only months earlier from his hospital bed, began with Osmankina riding in the wheelchair, holding a flag, as Moroz pushed her. A little farther on, a slippery patch on the road made him slide, and before the second turn on the course, they had switched positions. Osmankina pushed Moroz, his feet lifted so the heels of his everyday prostheses wouldnt catch on the ground. He lifted his arms up, encouraging the spectators who lined the course to cheer louder.

They arrived to fans. Andriy Boyko, a Ukrainian who lives in Melrose, Mass., a suburb north of Boston, showed up with his family to cheer from the sidelines. Moroz later said he had heard many people cheering for him and for Ukraine during the race, which he had not expected.

As they approached the end of the race, Moroz and Osmankina switched places again. Moroz ran, pushing his guide over the finish line.

The marathon would be there when he was ready. As he spoke, a good 20 minutes after he had crossed the finish line, his hand still trembled from the adrenaline.

It might be I will not sleep tonight, he said.

Read more:

He Lost His Legs in the War in Ukraine, but Not His Will to Run - The New York Times

WASHINGTON Amnesty Internationals board has sat for months on a report critical of the group after it accused Ukrainian forces of illegally endangering civilians while fighting Russia, according to documents and a person familiar with the matter.

The 18-page report, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, underscores the complexity of applying international law to aspects of the conflict in Ukraine and the continuing sensitivity of a matter that prompted a fierce and swift backlash to the human rights group.

In a lengthy statement on Aug. 4, Amnesty International accused Ukrainian forces of a pattern of illegally putting civilians in harms way by housing soldiers nearby and launching attacks from populated areas. Russia, which has shelled civilian buildings and killed many civilians, portrayed the finding as vindication, but it otherwise incited outrage.

In response, the group expressed deep regret for the distress and anger its statement caused and announced it would conduct an external evaluation to learn what exactly went wrong and why. As part of that, Amnesty Internationals board commissioned an independent legal review of whether the substance of what it had said was legitimate.

A review panel of five international humanitarian law experts received internal emails and interviewed staff members.

In some respects, the report by the review panel absolved Amnesty International, concluding that it was proper to evaluate whether a defender, not just an aggressor, was obeying the laws of war, and saying that Amnestys records made clear that Ukrainian forces were frequently near civilians.

Under international law, it wrote, both sides in any conflict must try to protect civilians, regardless of the rightness of their cause. As a result, it is entirely appropriate for a rights organization to criticize violations by a victim of aggression, provided that there is sufficient evidence of such violations.

But the review panel nevertheless unanimously concluded that Amnesty International had botched its statement in several ways and that its key conclusions that Ukraine violated international law were not sufficiently substantiated by the available evidence.

The overall narrative of the Aug. 4 release was written in language that was ambiguous, imprecise and in some respects legally questionable, the report found. This is particularly the case with the opening paragraphs, which could be read as implying even though this was not A.I.s intention that, on a systemic or general level, Ukrainian forces were primarily or equally to blame for the death of civilians resulting from attacks by Russia.

An earlier version of the report was harsher, according to the person briefed on the matter. But Amnesty International lobbied the panel to soften its tone, and it did so in some respects like revising its characterization of Amnestys conclusion that Ukrainian forces violated international law from not substantiated to not sufficiently substantiated.

The panel delivered its final revision in early February, the person said, and asked to be consulted if Amnesty Internationals board decided to release only excerpts. But instead, the board decided to merely use it as one of several sources for a lessons-learned document to circulate internally, the person said.

In an email, an Amnesty International spokesperson characterized the independent review as part of an ongoing internal process, and these findings will inform and improve our future work.

The statement did not indicate whether the group agreed with the reports critiques.

The panel consisted of Emanuela-Chiara Gillard of the University of Oxford; Kevin Jon Heller of the University of Copenhagen; Eric Talbot Jensen of Brigham Young University; Marko Milanovic of the University of Reading; and Marco Sassli of the University of Geneva.

Inside Amnesty International, the panel found, some staff members had expressed serious reservations about whether the group had sufficiently sought to consult with the Ukrainian government to understand why it deployed forces where it did and whether it would have been feasible to station them elsewhere.

These reservations should have led to greater reflection and pause before the organization issued its statement, the report said.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Russian forces appear to have committed a series of atrocities, indiscriminately shelling and killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure. (The International Criminal Court recently accused President Vladimir V. Putin of the war crime of abducting and deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia and issued a warrant for his arrest.)

Against that backdrop, Amnesty Internationals denunciation of Ukrainian tactics received a large amount of attention. Proponents of the Kremlin portrayed the findings as essentially showing that Ukraine was to blame for the deaths of Ukrainian civilians at Russias hands.

Russias ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, cited the findings as part of justifying Russias occupation of a nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

We dont use the tactics Ukrainian armed forces are using using the civilian objects as military cover, I would say, what Amnesty International recently proved in a report, which we were saying all the time in all the meetings with the Security Council, he said.

The statement did not, in fact, accuse Ukraine of using civilians as human shields, only of failing to take precautions to protect them. Still, the backlash was fierce. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine accused the organization of trying to shift the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim.

Inside Amnesty International, its statement was deeply contentious. Its Ukraine director, Oksana Pokalchuk, resigned in protest, noting that Russia was accused of atrocities in the towns it occupied and Ukraine was trying to prevent more such places from falling. She accused the group of giving Russia a justification to continue its indiscriminate attacks. The groups branch in Canada issued a statement expressing regret over the magnitude and impact of these failings from an institution of our stature.

While condemning Amnesty Internationals analysis, the review panel agreed that the statement which had lacked much detail was backed in part by fact.

The report said the groups researchers had documented at least 42 specific instances in 19 towns and villages where Ukrainian soldiers were operating near civilians. It also determined that several attacks by Russian forces that appeared to be targeting the Ukrainian military resulted in death or injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.

That raised the question of whether the Ukrainian military had violated its legal obligations, under a 1977 expansion of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, to take precautions to protect civilians in their areas of operations to the maximum extent feasible.

Essentially, that means if there are two equally good locations for the military to station itself, one closer to civilians and one farther away, combatants should opt for the latter so that any enemy does not kill civilians as collateral damage. If there is no equally good alternative, a military force should try to evacuate civilians to a safer place.

The news release accused Ukraine of a pattern of failing to take either step, while also saying it should have warned civilians. But the report said Amnesty International failed to meaningfully engage with Ukrainian authorities about whether equally good alternative locations, evacuations or warnings were feasible.

The report also said the descriptor pattern was imprudent because it implied that generally, many or most of the civilian victims of the war died as a result of Ukraines decision to locate its forces in the vicinity of civilians, as opposed to Russias willingness to target civilians or civilian objects deliberately or indiscriminately.

Lacking sufficient information, it said, the group should have used more cautious language.

Link:

Amnesty International Sat on a Report Critical of Its Ukraine Concerns - The New York Times

28 April 2023

Image source, Sasha Bondarenko/Facebook

Friends and colleagues have paid tribute to Sasha Bondarenko's humour, intelligence and big heart

Former BBC News Ukraine journalist Oleksandr Bondarenko has been killed on duty on the front line in Ukraine.

He volunteered for Ukraine's territorial defence at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, working as a communications expert and media trainer and then becoming part of the military.

Details of how he was killed in action are not yet known.

Close friends said only that "death caught up with him in a battle".

Friends, former BBC colleagues and Ukraine's wider media community paid tributes to a talented journalist who went on to be a successful communications professional.

Known as Sasha or Sashko, Bondarenko was originally from Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.

He worked for the BBC's Ukrainian Service from 2007 to 2011 as a news reporter, presenter and editor of radio programmes broadcast from Kyiv. He left the BBC to work for other media organisations.

At the start of the war Sasha Bondarenko worked as a communications expert and media trainer.

At the start of the war he was in charge of special projects for leading Ukrainian communications agency, RMA, whose staff paid tribute to his intelligence, humour and voice.

He was one of many thousands of Ukrainians who have left their civilian jobs across all walks of life to defend their country from the Russian invasion.

Among well-known Ukrainians who enlisted were members of one of Ukraine's top rock bands, Antytila, who became army medics, and broadcasters Pavlo Kazarin and Yurii Matsarskyi.

A number of journalists have lost their lives reporting on the war too. A Ukrainian fixer working with an Italian reporter was killed this week as they came under fire near the southern city Kherson.

Vasyl Samokhvalov of RMA paid tribute to Sasha Bondarenko as a man who volunteered on day one: "A human with a will of steel. A human with the clearest motivation. A human with the best music playlist."

The former head of the BBC's Ukrainian Service, Maciek Bernatt-Reszczynski, said the corporation was extremely lucky to have him on the Kyiv team: "It was always new challenges with this extraordinary man. Including the last, heroic one, to defend his country from aggression."

Bondarenko graduated from Luhansk teacher-training college and started his career in journalism at a local radio station in the east of Ukraine, before working for leading Ukrainian TV channels and and then the BBC's Ukrainian Service.

BBC Ukraine's editor-in-chief Marta Shokalo (R) paid tribute to her former colleague

"I look at our photos together and can't stop crying even though I can only remember our carefree days in the Kyiv office and how we laughed together," said Marta Shokalo, BBC Ukraine's editor-in-chief.

He went on to work as a TV reporter, covering the mass Maidan anti-government protests in Kyiv in 2013-14 and later Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014.

As a native of eastern Ukraine his insight of the complexities of Ukraine's relationship with Russia was seen as especially valuable.

A keen athlete, he achieved a long-held ambition of swimming the Bosphorus. His last photo published on Facebook was captioned: "Somewhere in the Kharkiv woods."

Image source, Sasha Bondarenko/Facebook

Colleagues described an unpretentious but highly knowledgeable journalist who seemed "brilliant at everything"

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Ukraine war: Ex-BBC journalist Bondarenko killed on front line - BBC

Ukraine

Visually striking and politically strident, a new subgenre of magazines in Kyiv and Russia is sharing images and stories of the invasion to challenge the Putin myth

Steven Watson

Thu 27 Apr 2023 03.00 EDT

When 26-year-old documentary photographer Sebastian Wells travelled from Berlin to Ukraine shortly after the Russian invasion, he wasnt entirely sure what he was going to do. Many of my colleagues went directly to the frontline, he explains from a sunny cafe in Kyiv. I knew that wouldnt be my role, but I didnt know what else I should do. I spent two weeks in Kyiv getting frustrated and feeling like some kind of war tourist, and thats when I started trying to find young creative people in the city.

His first meeting was with 22-year-old fashion photographer Vsevolod Kazarin, and together the pair set about taking pictures of young people on the streets of Kyiv. Sharing a camera and an SD card, they assembled a series of street-style images, with their subjects photographed alongside sandbags, concrete barricades and anti-tank obstacles.

They thought they could maybe use their images to create propaganda posters that they could send to friends in European cities, building bridges with young people across the EU and encouraging them to donate to Ukraine.

But then they came across illustrations by the 18-year-old artist Sonya Marian that rework Soviet-era Russian paintings to explore the origins of Russian aggression. They read the text that Andrii Ushytskyi, 22, posted to his Instagram account, reflecting on his personal experiences of the war and as the texts and imagery came together, they realised they had something much more substantial than a series of posters.

The first issue of Solomiya was published in August 2022 as a big, beautiful and defiant piece of print, with the second issue printed last month. It has come a long way from the early idea of posters but the mission has stayed the same. Reading Solomiya gives an intimate account of what life is like for young people in Kyiv. It also makes it easy for readers to send support the magazine gives details of charities and organisations run by young Ukrainians alongside QR codes for donating to them.

Another magazine on its second issue is Telegraf, which was first published in May 2021 as a journal for the Ukrainian design community. The second issue was initially focused on Ukrainian digital product design and was nearing completion when Russia invaded. Priorities suddenly shifted.

From the first days of the full-scale invasion we have seen a huge surge of activity by designers, illustrators, artists and all other creatives, says editor-in-chief Anna Karnauh. These artworks have become a huge inspiration for many Ukrainians. We realised that we simply had to collect them and to tell the real story of how creatives lived and worked during this war.

Now on its third print run, Telegrafs war issue is a remarkable object, with each cover customised by hand and slogans printed on the fore-edges of the pages so that either Slava Ukraini! (Glory to Ukraine) or Heroiam Slava (Glory to the heroes) appears on the edge of the magazine depending on which way its held. It is only available in Ukrainian so far, but an English version will be published in the coming months, and Karnauh and her team hope to reach a wider audience with it.

The war has inspired magazine-makers on the Russian side, too BL8D (pronounced blood) is published by a group of Russian artists and creatives who oppose Vladimir Putins regime, and, like Telegraf, it resulted from a sudden change of plan. Originally intended as a trendbook that searched for the essence of Russian culture, the project was ready to print when Russia invaded. The team responded by scrapping their PDFs and setting to work on an anti-military manifesto, condemning the war and looking forward to a day after Putins regime has been toppled.

The magazine is based on two long interviews probing deep into Russian identity one with art historian Tata Gutmacher and one with museum researcher Denis Danilov. The interviews are presented alongside photography and illustration that create a stark and striking picture of Russianness and argue that a different reality is possible.

The entire Putin regime rests on the myth that Europe hates Russia and nothing good awaits a person outside, says creative director and editor-in-chief Maria Azovtseva. We decided to create our own weapon an art book about the imminent death of the Putin myth.

Solomiya If we were to describe life in times of war, we would use the word but, because it evokes a feeling of discomfort and ambiguity that emerges when discussing something that is far beyond our control. Ukrainians have to keep living, but must also remember that death may come at any second. Taken from editors letter.

BL8D[The magazine is] our voice against the war. It is our anger and our rage towards those who started this war, and those who still support it It is our fears and an attempt to look at ourselves in the mirror to understand how this could have happened to all of us. Taken from editors letter.

Telegraf We have collected iconic images that arose during the full-scale war, says editor Anna Karnauh, together with personal stories of people who lived in and fled out of the occupation, who instead of working in the office or sipping oat lattes on the way to design meetups, are now defending their country on the frontline.

Steven Watson is the founder of stackmagazines.com

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We created our own weapon: the anti-invasion magazines defying Putin in Ukraine - The Guardian

Ukraine

Strangers stopped to listen in the street when the windows were open and the girls from refugee family were practising

Sat 29 Apr 2023 07.37 EDT

When a Northumberland couple opened up their village home to a Ukrainian mother and her two daughters last year, they were responding to the plight of refugees escaping the Russian invasion. Having been told no more than that this was a musical family, Sheilagh Matheson and Chris Roberts offered two bedrooms and a honky-tonk piano.

Soon they found themselves arranging the loan of a Steinway upright after discovering that these children had an extraordinary musical talent one that made passersby stop to listen at an open window.

Both girls have now received scholarships to two of the UKs foremost music schools, less than a year after fleeing their home near Kyiv to start new lives in Corbridge, not far from Newcastle.

Khrystyna Mykhailichenko, 17, has been awarded a full bursary for four years to study piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Her 12-year-old sister, Sasha, a violinist, has a scholarship to become a weekly boarder at the Yehudi Menuhin School near Leatherhead in Surrey.

Both feel that classical music helped them to face the trauma of abandoning their home with their mother, Nataliia. They lived in Poland for three months before arriving in Corbridge last June as part of the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

Matheson, a semi-retired broadcast journalist, lives with her husband, a national director of the Skills Funding Agency, in an end-of-terrace five-bedroomed house.

She told the Observer that they themselves are not musical, but that the Ukrainians music-making in their home has been absolutely unbelievable: You run out of superlatives. When the windows are open, you see people walking by and they just stand there.

Joking that their honky-tonk piano is worthy of a smoke-filled room with men drinking pints and singing Roll Out the Barrel, Matheson said: All we knew before they arrived was that they were a musical family. A few days before, I was sent a film of Khrystyna playing Tchaikovskys Piano Concerto No 1 [aged just 14]. I thought, ah, right, were in a different league here.

So I scuttled around trying to find access to a grand piano she could practise on. The musical fraternity in Northumberland, of which I am not part, were incredibly helpful. A couple contacted us and said, weve got a Steinway upright that you can have. That was duly delivered.

The girls and their older brother, Danylo, 25, were born in Simferopol in Crimea, from where the family fled in 2014, when the Russians took control. They moved to Irpin, near Kyiv, only to lose their father, Gennady, a professor of Ukrainian literature, in a fishing accident a year later.

Irpin was laid waste to by Russian forces. Danylo is still in the family home, without running water and limited electricity, and his mother and sisters fear for him.

Matheson said: Nataliia has a friend who was shot and injured trying to escape, and another friends husband died in the war. Now theres a probability of conscription. One friends son hasnt left the house for six months because hes terrified of being swept up.

Khrystyna began learning the piano aged four, and her parents soon realised she had an extraordinary gift. Within a few years, she was winning international competitions and giving concerts.

She said: When I was in Ukraine, I used to imagine going to the Royal Academy, because of its worldwide reputation, and we knew all about the Yehudi Menuhin School. But we never, ever thought our dreams of studying in those places would become a reality.

Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, the Royal Academys principal, said: Khrystyna Mykhailichenko is an extraordinary talent of rare maturity for her age. She came and played the Chopin Ballade No 1 to me recently and revealed what a serious artist she is, almost as if the burdens of a hard life were being channelled through her playing. This was well beyond the carefree virtuosity one hears in this piece so often. It also had real grip and originality.

Ashley Wass, the Menuhin Schools director of music, said: Sasha is a wonderfully talented and high-achieving musician, which is inspirational, especially given the challenges she has faced.

The Mykhailichenko family now hope that someone will open up their home in the Leatherhead area,so that mother and daughters can be reunited on weekends and in holidays.

Nataliia has two university degrees but she is prepared to take any job. She currently volunteers at a food bank and for a charity for adults with special needs.

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Ukrainian sisters lodging in Northumberland turn out to be musical prodigies - The Guardian

27 April 2023

The teacher had claimed that Ukraine's capital had not been subjected to a Russian war

A Czech primary school teacher is due to face trial for spreading Russian disinformation about the war in Ukraine to her pupils.

Martina Bednarova, who until last year taught Czech at a school in Prague, told children last April there was "no war" in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

On the contrary, she claimed, Ukrainian soldiers were murdering the Russian-speaking inhabitants of Donbas.

A state prosecutor has filed charges against her, Czech daily Pravo reports.

Ms Bednarova is accused of the criminal offence of denying, questioning, approving or justifying genocide. She faces between six months and three years in prison if convicted.

She told her class of 13- and 14-year-old pupils in early April 2022 that she had seen webcam images from Kyiv that showed the city was peaceful, with no fighting.

When some of the children challenged her remarks, saying they had seen footage of Kyiv burning on the country's public TV network Czech Television, she explained they should seek out alternative sources.

She falsely claimed that Czech TV belonged to a stable of media outlets tied to US billionaire philanthropist George Soros, adding that "we all know to whom he is beholden". Mr Soros has for years been the focus of hard-right conspiracy theories because of his funding of liberal, democratic causes.

Ms Bednarova also made further unfounded claims that openly neo-Nazi Ukrainian forces were skinning and burning alive Russian-speakers, including children. She alleged Ukraine had been running a murderous campaign of terror in Donbas since 2014, a regular theme of Russian propaganda.

Her remarks were covertly recorded by one of the pupils who played it to his parents, who then approached the school. She was later dismissed for gross misconduct. She challenged her dismissal in court, but lost.

According to Pravo, Ms Bednarova denies the criminal charges against her, arguing she was merely presenting the children with facts. The 18-minute recording was part of a 45-minute discussion, and the comments were taken out of context, she argues.

Her prosecution is one of several high-profile cases, as Russia's war against Ukraine tests the limits of freedom of expression in the Czech Republic.

Earlier this month a Czech man received a six-month suspended sentence for wearing symbols of Russia's war to an anti-government demonstration. He was fined and banned from entering Prague for a year for wearing Russia's notorious pro-war "Z" symbol as well as a patch of the Wagner mercenary group.

The man was sentenced for the same offence as Ms Bednarova.

The Czech government is a firm backer of Ukraine's effort to defend itself from Russia, and the public is broadly supportive. However, some Czechs - including the new president Petr Pavel - have warned such support will inevitably wane over time.

President Pavel, former second in command at Nato, told Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita last month that he believed Ukraine had "one shot" at a major counter-offensive.

He said it would be "extremely difficult" for the West to maintain the currently level of support - both military and moral - beyond next winter, and Kyiv's window of opportunity was this year.

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Czech teacher on trial over Ukraine war misinformation - BBC

26 April 2023

Image source, La Repubblica

Italian reporter Corrado Zunino was wounded

A Ukrainian journalist working as a fixer for Italy's La Repubblica newspaper has been shot dead by snipers in Ukraine.

Bogdan Bitik was working with Italian reporter Corrado Zunino, who was wounded, when they were ambushed by suspected Russian snipers in the Kherson region, the newspaper said.

Both were wearing bulletproof vests with "Press" written on them, it added.

Russia says it has annexed Kherson despite only controlling some of it.

The reporters were targeted near the Antonivskyi bridge across the Dnipro river near the Ukrainian-held city of Kherson, which sits on the river's west bank.

Russian troops destroyed the bridge when they withdrew across the river from the city in November. Ukrainian forces are now reported to have set up positions on the eastern bank nearby.

The reporters had passed three checkpoints and the Ukrainian military had let them through "without problem", Zunino said in a telephone conversation with his newspaper.

He then heard a "hiss" and saw his colleague lifeless on the ground.

"We were hit. I saw Bogdan on the ground, he wasn't moving," he said

"I crawled until I got out of the line of fire. I ran until I came across a civilian's car. I was covered in blood. I tried several times to call Bogdan, he didn't answer."

Zunino is being treated in hospital in Kherson.

Bitik "unfortunately did not make it", the newspaper wrote, adding that he leaves behind his wife and a son.

"He was a great friend of mine, the pain is excruciating," Zunino said.

The newspaper said it was proving difficult to recover Bitik's body because of Russian snipers.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Italian media that the Russians were responsible for the killing.

"Russians don't care if you're Russian, Italian or Ukrainian, they just shoot," he said.

Moscow did not immediately comment.

Before this death was announced, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said eight reporters had been killed and 19 injured in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion last year.

Crossing the Dnipro river could be significant in future offensives. Ukraine's military has for some time publicly spoken about preparations for a major counter-offensive, without specifying where and when it could be launched.

Until now, all of the Kherson region on the east bank of the Dnipro has been under Russian control, with the wide river serving as a natural barrier.

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Ukraine war: Sniper kills fixer and wounds Italian reporter in Ukraine - BBC

13.50EDTSummary

As the time approaches 9pm in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, here is a round-up of todays news.

Russia said its patience should not be tested over nuclear weapons in another repeat of hardline rhetoric over their use. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Russia will do everything to prevent the development of events according to the worst scenario but not at the cost of infringing on our vital interests. Vladimir Putin has previously made comments saying he wants to avoid nuclear war, but his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told a UN hearing on Monday that the world was possibly more dangerous than during the cold war.

The Kremlin said that relations with European countries are at their lowest possible level amid more expulsions of diplomats.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it welcomed anything that could hasten the end of the Ukraine conflict when asked about Wednesdays phone call between the Chinese and Ukrainian leaders.

Natos secretary general Jens Stoltenberg also welcomed the discussion between president Xi and president Zelenskiy and repeated the possibility of the war ending at the negotiating table.

Stoltenberg said 98% of promised combat vehicles have now been delivered to Ukraine. This comprises 1,550 armoured vehicles and 230 tanks. This equates to nine new Ukrainian brigades.

The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe has voted that the forced detention and deportation of children from Russian occupied territories of Ukraine is genocide, at a session on Thursday.

A resolution on deportations and forcible transfers of Ukrainian children and other civilians to Russian Federation or to Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied: create conditions for their safe return, stop these crimes and punish the perpetrators passed with 87 votes in favour, meaning an overwhelming majority. One representative voted against and another abstained.

Russias defence ministry has claimed that its forces had taken four blocks in north-western, western and south-western Bakhmut, Russia state-owned news agency RIA reported.

Russias foreign ministry has rejected a bid by the US embassy to visit the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in prison on 11 May. It said the measure was taken in response to Washingtons failure to process visas for representatives from the journalistic pool of the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during his visit to the United Nations on Monday.

The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has invited Pope Francis to visit Ukraine during a visit to the Vatican. He asked the pontiff for help to return children from the east of Ukraine who have been forcibly taken to Russia by Kremlin forces.

Andrij Melnyk, Ukraines former ambassador to Berlin has said Germany was still failing to provide the support it should. The Germans are helping much more than they were, and for that we Ukrainians are very grateful, but the government is only delivering as much as it feels it should, he told Die Zeit in an interview in Kyiv.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russias Wagner, has said he was joking when he said the mercenary group would suspend fire in Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces on the other side of the frontline to show the city to visiting US journalists.

At least seven civilians were killed and 33 injured between Wednesday and Thursday, Ukraines presidential office has said, including one person killed and 23 wounded including a child when four Kalibr cruise missiles hit the southern city of Mykolaiv.

Russia has reinforced its defences ahead of a much-expected counterattack by Ukrainian forces, analysts have suggested. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that the 500 miles (800km) of Russian lines protecting occupied Ukraine have been triple-fortified and included a gush of manpower. The timing comes as the usual winter freeze has begun to thaw and dry, making mobilisation more likely.

Britains opposition Labour party has asked the government why there has been no new weapons announcement since February and no fresh update from ministers to parliament since January.

Thats all for today. Thanks for following along. Well be back tomorrow.

Updated at 13.50EDT

The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe has voted that the forced detention and deportation of children from Russian occupied territories of Ukraine is genocide, at a session on Thursday.

A resolution on deportations and forcible transfers of Ukrainian children and other civilians to Russian Federation or to Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied: create conditions for their safe return, stop these crimes and punish the perpetrators passed with 87 votes in favour, meaning an overwhelming majority. One representative voted against and another abstained.

In its resolution, the assembly called for immediate and urgent action to be taken to halt the practices of unlawful forcible transfer and deportation currently being carried out by the Russian Federation against the Ukrainian population, and especially its policy and practices relating to the removal of children from their families and homes and their subsequent absorption into Russian citizenship, identity and culture.

It added: The assembly highlights the need for the recording and monitoring of individual cases, both in order to permit mechanisms for rapid redress, and to collect evidence of accountability in order to bring the perpetrators, at all levels of responsibility, to justice.

The assembly called for the practice to stop immediately and unconditionally. It also demanded Russia give access to NGOs and charities, as well as information about where the children now are.

The international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in March in relation to the unlawful deportation of minors. One was also issued for Russias childrens rights commissioner Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova who is believed to have 18 adopted children, including a teenager from Mariupol.

The resolution claims that Russia began moving children from the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk before its invasion on 24 February last year. In a report earlier this month, the Ukrainian government said it had collected reports of more than 19,000 children who had been deported.

Updated at 13.19EDT

The Ukrainian security service has given details of eight men of military age who had tried to leave Ukraine to avoid serving in the armed forces.

It said that a group was charging up to $7,000 (5,600) to help people illegally cross the border, including with false documents. Ten have been arrested in total across Ukraine.

One was a taxman in the Poltava oblast who sold fake medical certificates, and another in Kharkiv is suspected of helping people evade military service by posing as business travellers for defence firms.

Other schemes to smuggle people out include disguising them as truck drivers, the SBU reports.

Updated at 12.48EDT

Russia has reinforced its defences ahead of a much-expected counterattack by Ukrainian forces, analysts have suggested.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that the 500 miles (800km) of Russian lines protecting occupied Ukraine have been triple-fortified and included a gush of manpower.

The timing comes as the usual winter freeze has begun to thaw and dry, making mobilisation more likely.

The Russian defensive wall runs from Kherson, in Ukraines south, to the north-east of the country, spanning more than 500 miles. An autumn counterattack saw Ukrainian forces sweep across the south-east, retaking half of Kherson city.

These defensive lines consist of layered fortifications and trenches, said Brady Africk at US thinktank American Enterprise Institute.

They include anti-tank ditches, raised barriers, lines of pre-fabricated defences known as dragons teeth, landmines and trenches for personnel, he told AFP.

The Russian objective is to maintain control over occupied territory and to attempt to limit Ukraines ability to conduct a counteroffensive, he said.

Moscows strategy is to be able to absorb any attack, said Pierre Razoux at the Mediterranean Foundation of Strategic Studies, a French research body.

The attackers are likely to get stuck by the time they reach the second layer, and even if they get past it, the third is going to be very hard to breach, he said.

Russia will employ the time-honoured strategy of channelling attacking enemy troops onto ground of their choosing, said Andrew Galer at British strategy thinktank Janes.

But Ukraine meanwhile gets to decide where to attack Russian lines, he said, adding that Kyiv may not have made its choice yet.

Ukraine could well try to mislead Russia with a small-scale attack to pull defending forces there, and then direct the main attack elsewhere, he said.

Vassily Kashin, at the HSE university in Moscow, said Ukraine could pick the region of Bakhmut where battles have raged for 10 months for its attack, but acknowledged that the data we have are very limited.

Kashin said the balance of forces at the front is changing in favour of Russia. Ukraine can try to change this with a last desperate blow, he said.

Updated at 12.15EDT

More from Vladimir Putins speech at the launch of a Russian-built nuclear power plant in Turkey on Thursday.

Putin praised the leadership of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoan ahead of an election where Erdoan is running to be re-elected.

Erdoan, 69, suspended all campaigning for Turkeys pivotal presidential and parliamentary elections on 14 May after falling ill while conducting a live TV interview on Tuesday.

While a member of Nato and sending arms to Ukraine, Turkey has maintained ties to Russia during the war and has hosted discussions between both sides.

The Russian president spoke virtually at the launch of a Russian-built nuclear plant in Turkey, using the opportunity to heap praise on Erdoan, saying Moscow was ready to extend the hand of friendship.

Putin said the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, Turkeys first, was a convincing example of how much you, President Erdoan, are doing for your country, for the growth of its economy, for all Turkish citizens.

I want to say it straight: you know how to set ambitious goals and are confidently moving towards their implementation, he added.

Putin stressed that Russia was one of the first countries to send rescue teams and medical personnel to Turkey in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in February.

We are always ready to extend the hand of friendship to our Turkish partners, Putin added.

Updated at 11.51EDT

Russia has destroyed a bridge in Chernihiv, according to the north-eastern oblasts governor.

Viacheslav Chaus told a telethon that Russian shelling had destroyed the crossing over the Sudost River. It connected the villages of Muravyi and Gremyach near Novgorod-Siversky.

Serhii Serhienko, the head of the Novgorod-Siversky district military administration said: For several weeks, the bridges over the rivers of the Novgorod-Siversk community have been shelled. This makes it impossible to provide services to the population in a normal format: to provide food and other things. And it limits movement to the central self-government bodies.

Updated at 10.21EDT

A former commander of Russias Wagner group who is seeking asylum in Norway has been convicted of carrying an air gun and being involved in a bar fight.

Andrei Medvedev was given a two-week sentence which has been suspended for two years. He was acquitted of violence against the police, Reuters reports.

I want to thank the court for a fair ruling, Medvedev told Reuters, adding he was looking to the future. I am studying Norwegian and I hope I will get asylum.

He crossed the Russian-Norwegian border in January and has spoken out about his time fighting in Ukraine.

On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to fighting outside an Oslo bar in February and preventing a police officer from doing his or her duty. He also pleaded guilty to carrying an air gun in public on a separate occasion on 14 March.

But Medvedev had pleaded not guilty to a fourth charge of committing violence against a police officer. He was acquitted on Thursday.

Separately, Medvedev will continue to speak with Norwegian police about his time with Wagner. Russia denies accusations of war crimes in the conflict.

Now he can avoid jail and focus on what he came [to Norway] for: explain [about his time] in the war in Ukraine, his lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, told Reuters.

Updated at 10.11EDT

At least seven civilians were killed and 33 injured between Wednesday and Thursday, Ukraines presidential office has said, including one person killed and 23 wounded including a child when four Kalibr cruise missiles hit the southern city of Mykolaiv (see 05.49).

The governor of Mykolaiv province, Vitalii Kim, said 22 multi-storey buildings, 12 private houses and other residential buildings were damaged in the attack, Associated Press reports.

Defence officials said the Kalibr missiles were fired from somewhere in the Black Sea.

Updated at 10.07EDT

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russias Wagner, has said he was joking when he said the mercenary group would suspend fire in Bakhmut to allow Ukrainian forces on the other side of the frontline to show the city to visiting US journalists.

Prigozhin said in an audio message on Thursday: A decision has been taken to suspend artillery fire so that American journalists can safely film Bakhmut and go home.

In a later audio message, however, he said: Guys, this is military humour. Humour, and nothing more ... It was a joke, Reuters reported.

Wagner has been leading Russias assault on Bakhmut since the summer in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, but Ukrainian forces have so far thwarted its attempts to take full control of the city.

Updated at 09.24EDT

Andrij Melnyk, Ukraines former ambassador to Berlin who was deeply critical of what he saw as Germanys hesitancy over providing material support to Ukraine from the start of Russias invasion has said Germany was still failing to provide the support it should.

The Germans are helping much more than they were, and for that we Ukrainians are very grateful, but the government is only delivering as much as it feels it should, he told Die Zeit in an interview in Kyiv.

Melnyk, who returned to Ukraine in October as deputy foreign minister, was perceived as something of a thorn in the side of the government of Olaf Scholz for his frequent interventions in debates on Ukraine, which he himself describes as often undiplomatic.

He said he regretted he was no longer able to use his influence on Berlin. A year ago we were powerful participants in the debate, and even steering it. But my successor does it differently, he said.

Now were simply swimming with the current, letting ourselves go with the flow.... Our offensive is going to happen, and the Germans think: Weve delivered 18 Leopards (tanks), ticked that off the list, finito. As if the war had been won with these tanks. The coalition government has convinced the German public that regarding military help, everything is sorted. Which is not true.

Instead of continuing to bang the drum, his successor, Oleksiy Makeev, was repeating mantra-like, Thankyou Germany, Melnyk said, adding that he was hardly in touch with Makeev, due to their very different points of view.

He denied his return to Ukraine where his particular responsibility is relations with Latin America - was an attempt to rein him in. My post there was long enough and it was a miracle that I was able to stay there when the war started, he said. But he admitted he had not wanted to leave.

It is no secret that I left Berlin against my will. I would have liked to have continued, because I had the feeling that I could have achieved a lot more for Ukraine despite the strong headwinds I faced.

Here in Kjiv the opposition was stronger still, because many didnt understand why I was often acting in this very unconventional, often undiplomatic way in order to pull the government out of its lethargy.

Updated at 11.16EDT

Heres some analysis of President Xi and President Zelenskiys call on Wednesday by our correspondent Helen Davidson in Taipei, and why it may have been hastened by problematic comments about sovereignty by a Chinese ambassador.

A long-awaited phone call between Xi Jinping and Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been cautiously welcomed, but China analysts say the timing suggests it could be partly an act of damage control after controversial comments by Chinas ambassador to France.

Ambassador Lu Shaye, one of Chinas wolf warrior diplomats with a history of fiery remarks, caused outrage across Europe this week when he denied the sovereignty of former Soviet states, saying they did not have effective status. The comments were roundly condemned, with several European nations summoning Chinese envoys for rebuke, and politicians suggesting it demonstrated Chinas untrustworthiness as a neutral party in the Ukraine war.

Beijing, which counts Russia as its closest major ally, has sought to present itself as neutral and a potential peacemaker and there have been signs that Xi was unhappy with Russias actions, but in practice China has largely supported Russias stance.

At a time when there is already significant concern about Russian ambitions and PRC [Peoples Republic of China] support for them, Lus comments seemed to suggest that Beijing is open to continued, perhaps even expanded, Russian aggression, said Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.

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Updated at 08.42EDT

Russias foreign ministry has rejected a bid by the US embassy to visit the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in prison on 11 May.

It said the measure was taken in response to Washingtons failure to process visas for representatives from the journalistic pool of the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during his visit to the United Nations on Monday.

Lavrov led a session of the UN security council on multilateralism, in which he said the world was at its most dangerous since the cold war. He had requested to bring journalists with him from Russia, but they were barred from entering the US.

It was particularly emphasised [to the US diplomat] that such sabotage, intended to prevent normal journalistic work, would not go unanswered, the foreign ministry said in its statement.

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Forced deportation of children from Ukraine by Moscow is genocide, Council of Europe says as it happened - The Guardian

SAN FRANCISCO, April 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine is working with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and American companies to collect evidence of war crimes by Russians, such as geolocation and cellphone information, senior officials said on Tuesday.

Ukrainian authorities are collecting digital information from battlefields and Ukrainian towns ravaged by the war since Russia invaded the country last February, said Alex Kobzanets, a FBI special agent who previously worked as a legal attache for the agency in Ukraine.

"Collection of that data, analysis of that data, working through that data is something the FBI has experience working through," Kobzanets said at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco.

That work includes looking into cellphone information, forensic analyses of DNA samples, as well as analysis of body parts collected off battlefields, he said.

"The next step is working with national U.S. service providers, and transferring that information...obtaining subscriber information, obtaining geolocation information, where possible," Kobzanets added.

The work reflects deepening collaboration between the U.S. and Ukraine on the cyber front, where Russia has been a common adversary for both nations.

The Russian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The agent added that the U.S. FBI had for the past year and a half been working on helping Ukraine to also identify Russian collaborators and spies operating in Ukraine and the Russian forces that were operating outside of Kiev as the invasion was happening.

U.S. security companies and officials have been a major partner of Ukraine in its efforts to fend off Russian cyberattacks, which it has battled since at least 2015.

Illia Vitiuk, head of the Department of Cyber Information Security in the Security Service of Ukraine, said that while the number of Russian attacks against Ukraine has grown in the last few years, in recent months they have become more targetted.

"Its very difficult to prove in a criminal case, who is responsible," said Vitiuk. "Its very important for us to get as much information about Russian cybercriminals...because we collect all this information and put it into our criminal cases."

We do believe that this case about cyber war crimes is something new, he added. This is where we have seen the first full scale cyber war.

Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in San Francisco; Editing by Michael Perry

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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FBI working with US companies to collect war crime evidence in ... - Reuters