The city of Kherson, located in the south of Ukraine, is facing extensive destruction due to Russia’s “scorched earth strategy.” This strategy involves the deliberate burning, destruction and removal [...] Continue Reading
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Hasidic Rosh Hashanah in Uman
In 2022, amid Russia’s full-scale invasion, more than 23,000 Hasidic Jews marked Rosh Hashanah in Uman, Ukraine—which is, coincidentally, the city of the author’s ancestors. The pilgrims arrived from [...] Continue Reading
A Pearl by the Sea under Attack
On Aug. 14, Odesa faced yet another Russian military assault in the middle of the night. The Russians attacked the southern seaport with 15 Iranian-made Shahed drones and eight Kalibr missiles [...] Continue Reading
The Holodomor: Capturing History
In 2022–2023, Ukraine commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor, a man-made famine engineered by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and his communist government. In 1932 and 1933, millions of [...] Continue Reading
Just Peace for Ukraine
During 15 months of full-scale invasion in Ukraine, the Russian Federation exhausted its military resources. Instead of the planned seizure of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, in three days, the Russian [...] Continue Reading
Ochakiv: A Year of Shelling
On April 7, at 5 a.m., the Russian military fired artillery and mortar fire at Ochakiv, a small Black Sea resort in the south of Ukraine located at the mouth of the Dnipro River and on the banks of [...] Continue Reading
Siversk: Spring in Donbas
When Galyna was in her 20s, she, with her husband and friends, liked to plant trees in their beloved town of Siversk. Chestnuts, apricots, cherries and acacias grew in her yard and along the quiet [...] Continue Reading
Donbas: In the Line of Fire
Donbas, an abbreviation for the toponym “Donetsk coal basin,” is an umbrella term applied to two regions of Ukraine: Luhansk (aka Luhanshchyna) and Donetsk (aka Donetshchyna). “These territories [...] Continue Reading
Life under Russian Occupation
Kherson, a southern Ukrainian city of 250,000 before the full-scale Russian invasion, was under Russian occupation since March 2, 2022. After its liberation on Nov. 11, the author visited the city of [...] Continue Reading
Odesa: Kholodomor (“Death by Cold”) Will Not Work
The first snow in Odesa, a southern seaport in Ukraine, was neither joyful nor quiet this year. The city woke up to the rumbling sounds of diesel generators shaking the streets. The Odesa region’s 1.5 [...] Continue Reading
Mykolaiv: Life in a Bunker
Yuri, a small business owner, ran his logistics business and owned a truck and a large garage in Mykolaiv, where he lived with his wife Svetlana, and two daughters, Karina and Alina, 12 and 13, in a [...] Continue Reading
War Crimes and Reinforced Concrete: Kharkiv
On Sept. 23, I witnessed law enforcement officers completing the exhumation of 447 bodies, including 425 civilians, five children and 22 servicemen, from Izium mass graves. The chief of the Kharkiv [...] Continue Reading