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The day Hamas attacked Israel, I unexpectedly reunited with my best friend in Kyiv.

Since Russias full-scale invasion in February last year, our paths had barely crossed. As a lecturer, researcher and volunteer, I went back and forth between Ukraine and Britain. My friend, meanwhile, traveled across Ukraine as a local producer for foreign journalists covering the war. It was important work. But on Oct. 7, a media trip my friend had been organizing to eastern Ukraine was canceled. The crew instead left for the Middle East.

They leave Ukraine because the front is moving slowly, my friend told me when we met at her place in Kyiv. The journalists will be back in no time once we liberate any significant patch of land.

Liberate another significant patch of occupied territories and discover another mass grave, I thought. That would, for a few days, refresh the worlds memory of what Ukraine is up against. The delivery of a dozen more tanks might follow, perhaps, along with some renewed talk of commitment. But with enough weapons to keep fighting but not to win, Ukraine is at a stalemate, as Gen. Valery Zaluzhny recently confirmed. Those of us not in the trenches must continue selling Ukrainian resistance to the world, telling our stories in the hope of support.

For 20 months, I have been churning out essays on why the world should stay focused on Ukraine. I have written them in a bomb shelter in Lviv, in a train packed with refugees in Poland, in a bathroom during an air raid in Kyiv and on the back seat of a car returning from near-frontline towns. Now, from the comfort of a London library, I try once again to persuade readers that they should not look away from my homelands struggle for survival, even as another part of the world is erupting in unspeakable violence.

But the words wont come. I refuse to compete for attention.

To captivate capricious and yet lifesaving international interest, Ukrainians film TikTok videos in the trenches and award-winning documentaries on the sites of Russian war crimes. One moment they show breathtaking bravery; the next they show their wounds. Be it NATO summits or TED talks, Ukrainians are using all available platforms to retell the tale of the underdog, in myriad voices, to keep the world invested in our existential fight.

And yet this high-stakes storytelling infantilizes Ukrainians: It turns us into children vying for the adults attention. Our allies play the role of easily distracted, perpetually fatigued spectators who cannot face the unadorned truth of the invasion. The truth, however, is there in full view at the center of the picture, like the anamorphic skull in Hans Holbeins majestic 1533 painting The Ambassadors.

Taking advantage of my temporary stay in London, I recently went to the National Gallery to stare at that portrait of two learned men in their best furs and velvets. Between them, inexplicably rising up from the floor, is a strange shape that somewhat resembles a mollusk. When looked at from the right angle, the distorted gray figure reveals itself to be a skull. It hints at the futility of furs and velvets, of verbal acrobatics and dances at the edge of the abyss. Holbein disrupts the vision of earthly riches and pursuits with the final truth of death.

After 20 months of writing our friends obituaries and watching our hometowns turn to rubble under enemy fire, Ukrainians have become overfamiliar with the concept of violent and sudden death. We share playlists for our own funerals and complain about having to wear fancy pajamas in case we are murdered in our sleep during another nightly visit of Iranian drones or Russian rockets.

But the threat of annihilation has not made us more willing to concede. According to a recent poll, 80 percent of Ukrainians still oppose any territorial concessions to Russia, even if this means that the war will last longer. As torture chambers and mass graves in the liberated territories of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson regions lay bare, Russian occupation does not present Ukrainians with a choice between life and freedom. Russia takes both, and then it takes some more.

Despite all our storytelling, what we seem to have failed to communicate to our allies is that the annihilation promised to us by Russia is not reserved for Ukrainians alone. By mining Ukrainian fields and bombing agricultural infrastructure, Russia promises starvation to parts of Asia and Africa that rely on Ukraines food exports. By weaponizing energy, Russia feeds right-wing reaction in Europe, as populist politicians exploit social discontent. By occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, pulling out of a nuclear test ban treaty and rattling its nuclear saber, Russia normalizes nuclear blackmail.

It simply wont stop at Ukraine. Every few days, propagandists on Russian state television fantasize about invading Poland, the Baltic States or Finland. The failure to convincingly punish Russia for its initial invasion of Ukraine almost a decade ago led to the escalation in 2022 and inspired others disregard for international law, including those now active in the Middle East. The alternative to punishment is an increasingly post-democratic and fragmented world where those who fight to preserve freedom are left to their own devices.

Ukrainians fight in full knowledge that no compromise with evil will contain it. This is the truth that our allies need to contemplate, absorb and act upon without having to be endlessly reminded of it.

Original post:
Opinion | I'm a Ukrainian, and I Refuse to Compete for Your Attention - The New York Times

It was just after 1 p.m. when the first of three artillery shells shrieked past Maryna Korifadzes bomb shelter in Kherson, landing nearby with a bone-rattling crump.

Her regular group of neighbors, some with children in tow, shuffled down the basement stairs and into the bunker. They passed around chocolate, coffee and tea. The younger crowd played table tennis in the next room.

Sometimes its between 20 and 30 people a night here, Ms. Korifadze said.

More than 20 months since Russia invaded, the war in Ukraine has been a test of endurance for the countrys civilians as they endure relentless Russian bombardments and missile strikes.

But the southern city of Kherson, captured by Russian forces early in the war and liberated by Ukrainian troops a year ago, holds a special place among Ukraines cities: It resides in a purgatory between liberation and occupation free of Russian troops but in range of much of Moscows arsenal.

Khersons residents have endured week after week of random violence since Russian troops fled, hoping for deliverance but receiving little as the city and its environs remain a bloody flashpoint.

But there is some hope. A series of secretive assaults across the Dnipro River which serves as Khersons southern and eastern boundary helped Ukrainian forces secure a sliver of land on the Russian-held bank in recent weeks.

What comes next is unclear, but Khersons embattled residents believe that, if successful, the attacks could push Russian formations and artillery farther away from their city.

Ms. Korifadze, buoyed by the news, recently called one of her colleagues who lives on the Russian-occupied side of the river and assured her: You will be liberated.

That may or may not come true. For now, the Russian strikes in and around Kherson continue unabated.

Russias use of glide bombs guided airdropped munitions capable of flying long distances has increased by more than 2,000 percent in recent months, Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, a spokesman for the Kherson regions military administration, said last week. Six weeks ago, there were one or two of these bombs a day across the region, he added, and now there are somewhere around 30 to 40.

Though his statistics could not be independently verified, Khersons residents have described a distinct change in the types and frequency of Russian ordnance being lobbed, dropped and fired at their city and surrounding towns. In recent days, Iskander ballistic missiles have also landed in Kherson, a violent breach of the normal rhythm of artillery.

Ms. Korifadze described the shock wave delivered by a missile that impacted late last month, pushing her car forward like an invisible hand as she drove to drop off food for her son, a police officer.

Standing next to the crater left by a glide bomb, Mykhailo Chornomorets narrated the shredding sound of the hurtling explosive as it traveled through the air before it exploded near his home.

Anna Hordiienko, who runs a small hardware store near one of Khersons more shelled neighborhoods, mouthed the different acoustics of booms and bangs that she has heard. She now feels as if she is an expert in analyzing them.

Kherson is a military training ground for them, Ms. Hordiienko said. Theyre just shooting everything they can at us.

Behind the seemingly unending supply of Russian ordnance is the stream of civilian casualties, the byproduct of the port city clinging to some form of normalcy only miles from Russian artillery positions. Ukrainian troops, as often occurs in frontline cities, live among the population, meaning noncombatants are also at risk. Russian shelling is haphazard and inaccurate, although Russia also has routinely targeted civilians.

Roughly 20 percent of Khersons population remains in the city, scattered across various neighborhoods.

Weeks ago, Ukrainian troops posited that Russias shelling of Kherson had declined since last winter, when the bombardment was at its worst and electricity and heat were scarce. Over the summer, Ukrainian and Russian armies battled farther east as part of Kyivs counteroffensive.

Those operations gave Kherson residents some respite, as did the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in June, which flooded both banks of the Dnipro and pushed Russian artillery positions further inland, away from the city.

But with Ukraines main offensive stalled and Russian forces attacking in the east, Moscow has shifted its attention back to Kherson and the Dnipro. Ukrainian forces have slowly gained a foothold on the Russian-held bank of the river through a series of amphibious landings that remain shrouded in secrecy. The increase in air attacks and shelling has almost certainly been focused at disrupting those assaults, Ukrainian officials and soldiers said.

Some say theyre there, others say theyre not, Ms. Hordiienko said about the river landings. Only God knows.

In previous months, the cross-river operations were more limited, with Ukrainian troops attacking for only a day or two before withdrawing. They were often supported by forces on the Ukrainian-held western bank: snipers and grenade launchers firing on Russian positions.

Now, Ukrainian soldiers involved in the operations describe a frantic and bloody battle where small craft move across the Dnipro River at night to avoid Russian drones before depositing infantry on the muddy eastern bank. Ukrainian units have described running out of ammunition and food, suffering from hypothermia and having little cover to protect themselves from Russian tanks and other armored vehicles.

Wounded soldiers sometimes have to wait for days on the small strip of land held by Ukraine before they can be picked up and ferried across the river to emergency care.

But what was once seen as a Ukrainian diversion to keep Russian troops occupied along the river appears to have vexed Russian forces to the point where Moscow switched out one of its key commanders in the area, according to Russian state media.

The sooner the Ukrainian troops push the Russians away from the river, the sooner well be left without artillery strikes, said Vasyl Pererva, a Ukrainian veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan who stayed in Kherson when Russian soldiers occupied the city last year. The Russian occupation of the city reminded him of the Soviet armys misguided invasion of Afghanistan, he said.

All these years later, I think, What the hell was I doing there, he recalled. I was an invader.

Once home to around 280,000 people, Kherson now has a population of about 60,000, and that number is expected to decline as winter sets in, especially if Russia begins to bomb Ukraines energy infrastructure, as it did last winter. Last Tuesday, a city resident named Mykola, 62, was boarding one of the regular evacuation trains from Kherson after a Russian shell riddled his home with shrapnel days before.

Most of the neighbors have moved out, he said. He declined to provide his surname.

Crime has dropped with the population, said Andrii Kovannyi, a police spokesman in Kherson, but petty theft and domestic disturbances remain a nuisance for officers, who juggle Russian attacks with mundane police work.

The increase in Russian strikes has also spurred the mandatory evacuation of children from the towns and villages outside of Kherson where Ukrainian forces are launching their assaults. Mr. Tolokonnikov, the official from the military administration, said more than 260 children and their families had left since late October. He expects some to stay.

In Kherson city, some playgrounds are ringed with defensive barricades in case a rocket, shell or bomb lands nearby. Most children in the city learn online. The lack of in-person classrooms has degraded Ukrainian youths education level since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Two nights after the artillery shells missed Ms. Korifadzes bomb shelter, her 9-year-old granddaughter Anya and Anyas mother were settling in for another night of air-raid alarms and Russian shelling. Older men from the neighborhood sat outside, pining for the days they could fish on the Dnipro.

Anyas mother asked her daughter if she thought the night would pass quietly, without the varying levels of violence and destruction that were slowly defining her childhood.

Anya responded quickly: Its never quiet.

Emile Ducke contributed reporting from Kherson, and Marc Santora from Kyiv, Ukraine.

See the article here:
Ukraine's Secret Plan to Save a City Trapped in Purgatory - The New York Times

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Ukraine's Zelensky nixes visit to Israel today in wake of leak - The Times of Israel

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Monday address that it is “not the right time for elections” in Ukraine as the end of his five-year term approaches. 

Zelensky argued in his Monday video address that Ukraine should not have to deal with elections as it continues to attempt to fend off Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022. He previously had not ruled out Ukraine holding a presidential contest next year, though elections are currently suspended in the country under martial law.

“And finally, the waves of any politically divisive things must stop,” he said Monday. “We must realize that now is the time of defense, the time of the battle that determines the fate of the state and people, not the time of manipulations, which only Russia expects from Ukraine. I believe that now is not the right time for elections.”

“And if we need to put an end to a political dispute and continue to work in unity, there are structures in the state that are capable of putting an end to it and giving society all the necessary answers. So that there is no room left for conflicts and someone else’s game against Ukraine,” he said. 

Presidential elections in Ukraine are scheduled to take place every five years, with the next one slated for next March. Zelensky was sworn into office in May 2019, meaning that his five-year term is set to expire in a few months.

Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska said in September that she did not know whether her husband would run for reelection in 2024. She also said at the time that the country’s ability to organize a free and fair election could factor into whether he would run for a second term.

“It will also depend whether our society would need him as a president, if he will feel that Ukrainian society will no longer wish him to be the president, he will probably not run,” Zelenksa said at the time. “But I will support him whatever decision he takes.”

Continued here:
Zelensky says its not the right time for elections in Ukraine - The Hill

Shkoda FPV-drones forced a Russian unit to leave an occupied village, returning the settlement to the grey zone.

Source: 108th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defence Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook

Quote: "Usually we would need active actions of assault units to drive the enemy out of the village, but this time the result was achieved by the coordinated actions of drones and artillery.

Several well-aimed strikes of FPV drones targeted the personnel of the enemy, which was located in one of the villages of the grey zone, after which the inhabitants of the swamps [Russians ed.] showed a gesture of goodwill (panicked retreat) and once again received several hits; and the highlight was the wrecked transport that came to pick up those orcs-losers [Russians ed.]."

Details: The servicemen report that the village is once again in the grey zone, the Russian unit is defeated, and there are no losses in the ranks of Ukrainian defenders

Quote: "This once again confirms the idea that drones save the lives of our soldiers. And the conclusion is: donate to the fundraisers for drones and believe in the Armed Forces of Ukraine."

Earlier: Ukroboronprom, a Ukrainian state-owned arms manufacturer, launched licensed production of three models of FPV drones from private companies.

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Ukraine's Armed Forces drive Russian unit out of occupied village with FPV drones - Yahoo News