Seven months ago Russia had started its military aggression in Ukraine. Thousands of people have been killed, wounded or raped. Millions became refugees or internally displaced people. Please, help Ukraine to resist Russia! Support the campaign to #ArmUkraineNow

What’s going on?

·  After a successful counter offensive by Ukraine’s Armed Forces, 8,500 square kilometres of the Kharkiv region were liberated from Russian occupation. In the newly liberated  territories, the world learned of terrible war crimes committed by Russian occupiers before they fled. A mass burial site with at least 445 bodies, including both Ukrainian civilians and military, was found in Izyum. 99% of the exhumed bodies show evidence of torture and violent death. In several liberated cities and villages, horrifying torture chambers have been found. 

·  Meanwhile writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, who was kidnapped by Russian occupiers in Kharkiv region in March, is still missing, even after the liberation of the village Kapytolivka, where he lived. The local police are investigating his abduction.

·  As a result of defeat on the battlefield, Russia commits terrorist attacks on Ukrainian cities. Russian missiles targeted strategic infrastructure, which led to massive power outages in several regions, and flooding. In Kryvyi Rih, Russians blew up the hydraulic dam, rin an attempt to inundate the city and nearby villages with water.

·  Russians continue the war against the cultural heritage of Ukraine. After the liberation of the Kharkiv region, the world learned that the Russian occupiers destroyed one of the Polovtsian stone women, the monuments of sacred art dating from the IX-XIII centuries. The invaders destroyed the local archaeological site known as «Settlement Kalmius» in occupied Mariupol, a historical monument from the time the Cossacks settled the territory near the Sea of Azov. In total, since 24 February, 514 objects of cultural heritage of Ukraine have been destroyed or seriously damaged by the Russian army.

Losses

·  The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has recorded 14,532 civilian casualties in Ukraine since 24 February, when Russia started its full-scale war. It is impossible to establish the actual number of dead, wounded and forcibly displaced due to the fact that the occupation forces are continuing their assault on Ukraine. Russia’s war against Ukraine has already produced over 7.4 million refugees.

·  On 12 September, Oleksandr Shapoval, a famous ballet dancer of the National Opera of Ukraine, was killed in battle in the Donetsk region. Oleksandr joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine voluntarily after the start of a full-scale invasion by Russia.

·  Find out more in our monitoring of losses among cultural figures.

Russian crimes against media

·  On 8 September, Russians killed cameraman of the Priamyi channel Oleksiy Yurchenko, who served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He was killed in battle liberating Balaklia city (Kharkiv region).

·  On 19 September, Russian troops kidnapped Zhanna Kyselyova, the editor of the Kakhovska Zorya newspaper. Her fate still remains unknown.

·  On 21 September, the occupants’ so-called Supreme Court of Crimea announced the ‘verdict’ in the trumped-up case of the deputy chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people and journalist Nariman Celâl, civic journalist Asan Akhtemov, and his cousin Aziz Akhtemov. Jointly, the three of them were sentenced to 45 years of imprisonment: Nariman Celâl to 17, Asan Akhtemov to 15, and Aziz Akhtemov to 13 years. Nariman Celâl and the Akhtemov cousins were detained by Russian occupiers on 4 September 2021. Their trial took place in gross violation of the regulations with no real evidence base at all.

·  Find out more about Russia’s crimes against the media in Ukraine in our report.

Words and bullets

Words and Bullets is the special project from Chytomo and PEN Ukraine about Ukrainian writers and journalists that joined the army or started volunteering when Russia invaded Ukraine in February this year. The name of the project symbolises the weapon the heroes and heroines of the project used before February 24 and the one they had to swap it for after the full-scale invasion. Read the articles:

·  Artem Chapeye: “If I hadn’t gone the first day, I would have gone a week later”;

·  Dmytro Krapyvenko: “It is important to talk about the losses in order not to get delusional and think that there are some immortals fighting on our side”;

·  Halyna Kruk: “War, as an existential crisis, gives birth to very bright manifestations of culture”;

·  Anatoliy Dnistrovy: “Russia’s war against Ukraine is its last cry in the desert”.

Share materials

·  Andrey Kurkov: from novelist to Ukraine’s travelling spokesman (The Guardian);

·  Sophie Pinkham “Immune to Despair” (The New York Review);

·  Myroslava Barchuk: “My War – Lifelines and Expensive Lessons” (Kyiv Independent);

·  Volodymyr Yermolenko «Why you should not be naïve about Russian culture» (PEN/Opp);

·  Dmytro Krapyvenko “The Two Most Precious Words” (The Empty Square);

·  Ukrainian Nazis for the Czech Republic, bio laboratories for North Macedonia, and Russophobia for Georgia. Analysis of Russian propaganda in 11 European countries (Detector Media);

·  Nataliya Gumenyuk “The World Now Has a Vision of Ukrainian Victory” (New York Times);

·  Alexander Query “Mykolaiv theater lives on from bunker amid shelling” (Kyiv Independent);

·  Tymothy Snyder «Making of Modern Ukraine Course» (YouTube);

·  Artem Tschech “Meine Begleiter sind Maschinenpistole, Spaten und Tablet” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in German).

Dialogues on war

We continue our conversation series, #DialoguesOnWar, where Ukrainian and foreign intellectuals talk about the experience of the war and share their own observations:

·  Dialogues on War: Oleksandr Zinchenko and Katrin Eigendorf (video);

·  Dialogues on War: Iryna Tsilyk and Agnieszka Holland (video);

·  Dialogues on War: Kateryna Babkina and Askold Melnyczuk (4 October, 6 PM Kyiv time);

·  Dialogues on War: Olena Huseinova and Paweł Pieniążek (6 October, 6 PM Kyiv time).

PEN Ukraine webpage on war

Visit our webpage for the latest news and materials on Russia’s war against Ukraine. Here you will find information on the situation in Ukraine, links to important materials and information resources, petitions, addresses, a list of publications about Ukraine to read in English, and books by Ukrainian authors recommended for translation. The page is continuously updated with the latest news and links.