Since the beginning of May, Kyiv has experienced 16 air attacks. This month Ukraine’s capital experienced the longest shelling attack since the full-scale war began. Many other Ukrainian cities are also under Russia’s fire.

What’s going on?

• Russia continues terrorising the civilian population of Ukraine with senseless air attacks. On April 28, a Russian missile hit a residential building in Uman, destroying an entire entrance: at least 23 people dead, including 6 children. On May 3, Russian troops shelled Kherson massively: at least 23 people were killed. In May Russia launched a series of mass shellings of Kyiv. In most instances, all incoming missiles have been destroyed, but debris falling from the air causes damage.
• Due to Russian aggression, at least 1,464 cultural infrastructure objects have already been damaged in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, according to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. Among them are 555 libraries.
• According to the National Resistance Center of Ukraine, collaborators, who were appointed by the occupation administration as ‘heads’ of the museum, have been tasked with looting cultural property from the Isaac Brodsky Art Museum in the city of Berdiansk (Zaporizhzhia region) to Russia. First of all, it was assigned to take out the most valuable exhibits – paintings by famous artists Aivazovsky, Benoit and others. In November 2022, Russians looted 15,000 exhibits of the Kherson Art Museum before its de-occupation by the Defense Forces of Ukraine.

Losses

• Russia continues terrorising the civilian population of Ukraine with senseless air attacks. On April 28, a Russian missile hit a residential building in Uman, destroying an entire entrance: at least 23 people dead, including 6 children. On May 3, Russian troops shelled Kherson massively: at least 23 people were killed. In May Russia launched a series of mass shellings of Kyiv. In most instances, all incoming missiles have been destroyed, but debris falling from the air causes damage.
• Due to Russian aggression, at least 1,464 cultural infrastructure objects have already been damaged in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, according to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. Among them are 555 libraries.
• According to the National Resistance Center of Ukraine, collaborators, who were appointed by the occupation administration as ‘heads’ of the museum, have been tasked with looting cultural property from the Isaac Brodsky Art Museum in the city of Berdiansk (Zaporizhzhia region) to Russia. First of all, it was assigned to take out the most valuable exhibits – paintings by famous artists Aivazovsky, Benoit and others. In November 2022, Russians looted 15,000 exhibits of the Kherson Art Museum before its de-occupation by the Defense Forces of Ukraine.

Russia’s crimes against media

• On April 22, former BBC journalist, soldier and communications officer, Oleksandr Bondarenko, was killed in battle with the Russian invaders in the Luhansk region. Before the full-scale war he worked at the Hromadske Radio, Pershyi Natsionalnyi TV channel, Ukrainian BBC service, UBR, Ukraina, ICTV, and PlusOne.
• On April 26, Ukrainian producer of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Bohdan Bitik, was killed by a Russian attack in Kherson. Corrado Zunino, a correspondent for La Repubblica, was wounded by a Russian strike. According to the newspaper, the journalists were ambushed by Russian snipers near a bridge. Both had press badges.
• On April 29, Volodymyr Mukan, journalist and junior lieutenant of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, died while performing a combat mission in Bakhmut (Donetsk region). Before the full-scale war, Volodymyr Mukan worked as a journalist and editor at Gazeta Po-Ukrainsky».
• On May 9, French video journalist Arman Soldin was deadly injured in missile shelling near Chasiv Yar (Donetsk region). His colleagues from the AFP News Agency witnessed his death.
• On May 15, it became known that photographer and soldier Denys Kryvyi was killed near Bakhmut. Kryvyi did landscape and reportage photography, animalist and aerial shooting. He was awarded with the FIAP prize from the European photographers’ contest. His footage was published in the National Geographic.
• On May 17, Ivan Kuzminskyi, musicologist and television director, was killed by the occupiers near Dibrova (Luhansk region). Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kuzminskyi carried on research activity in the sphere of ancient Ukrainian music and worked as a director at Maliatko TV Channel.
• On May 22, soldier, journalist, columnist for the popular science magazine «Kunsht» and the social criticism magazing «Commons», Yevheniy Osievsky was killed in a battle near Bakhmut. Yevheniy Osievsky is the 60th media person to die as a result of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Find out more about journalists and media workers who died in Ukraine as a result of Russia’s full-scale war.

Ukraine through the eyes of reporters

International journalists who report from Ukraine play a crucial role in helping the world see the truth about the unjustified and brutal Russia’s war. Ukraine Through The Eyes of Reporters produced by Ukrainer is a series of interviews aimed to highlight their work and understand how they approach their duty.

• Terrell Jermaine Starr, an American journalist, founder and host of the Black Diplomat podcast, which focuses on foreign policy issues, especially Ukraine;
• Nolan Peterson, an American journalist and a military veteran who has lived in Ukraine since the summer of 2014 when Russia first invaded the country;
• Gulliver Cragg, British journalist, who has worked for French radio in English and the France24 TV channel, and covers Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and Belarus;
• Lorenzo Cremonesi, the Italian journalist, who for more than forty years has written for one of Italy’s major newspapers – Corriere della Sera;
• Wolfgang Schwan, a photographer who’s been in Ukraine for a year now, working for Anadolu and Wired agency.

Share materials

• We respond to our people: PEN Ukraine Executive Board statement (PEN Ukraine);
• Kate Tsurkan “Why Ukrainian writers refuse to share stages with Russian authors at festivals” (Kyiv Independent);
• Olena Huseinova “Why I’m Not Attending Prima Vista” (Prima Vista);
• Nariman Dzelyal “Dignity Cannot Be Annexed” (Los Angeles Review of Books);
• Sasha Dovzhyk «Describing what should have never happened» (PEN Ukraine);
• Sasha Dovzhyk «Don’t be fooled by the flowery name. Russia’s ‘petal’ mines are the stuff of nightmares» (CNN);
• Abp. Borys Gudziak «Putin Distorts Gospel to Justify War» (Newsmax);
• Mstyslav Chernov «I Saw People Destroyed So Quickly» (Haaretz);
• Luke Harding “The Russo-Ukrainian War by Serhii Plokhy review – deeply personal study of ‘an old-fashioned imperial war’” (Guardian);
• Kate Tsurkan “How a celebrated Ukrainian writer turned into a war crimes researcher” (Kyiv Independent);
• Yuliya Musakovska «The August Story» (The Common);
• Tetyana Ogarkova, Volodymyr Yermolenko « Il est naïf de croire que l’on peut gagner une guerre à moitié » (Le Monde in French);
• Constantin Sigov « Aux racines du conflit ukrainien » (RCG in French);
• Serhij Zhadan „Empathie für die Ukraine ist wichtig“ (Radio Prague International in German);
• Marina Klimchuk «Manchmal ist es gerade die Stärke der Menschen, die mich zum Weinen bringt» (Stern in German);
• Ihor Kozlovskij “Člověk se po návratu ze zajetí znovu učí žít, říká bývalý vězeň Kremlu” (iDNES.cz in Czech);
• Elin Swedenmark «Ukrainska poeter ges ut – inleder ny satsning» (Aftonbladet in Swedish).

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.