War_Testimonies_UA: Phenomenology of the Russian-Ukrainian war

24/08/2023

Short documentary film “Dimension of the war: those who hold the Independence” is created to show and highlight the personalities of those Ukrainian soldiers...

20/08/2023

This is an evidence-based movie about true stories of russian atrocities in Bucha. We have no right to forget and forgive it. Never.

Russia has once again resorted to lies and manipulations. Once again, russia is trying to distort reality. However, evidence collected by the team of the Str...

25/11/2022

This girl was brought to a gas station to connect an inhaler necessary for her life.

Kyiv, Nov. 2022

Photo:

13/11/2022

Друзі, запрошуємо на розмову з Олександр Ірванець про кордони наявні та уявні. Коли? Вже цього вівторка о 19.00. Приєднуйтеся до поетичної розмови про прозу наших реалій і залишайте запитання під відео. Якщо вимкнуть електропостачання, дивіться у записі на сторінках УФК
https://www.facebook.com/events/1444609012700247/

09/11/2022

Kharkiv Oblast resident buried his Ukrainian flag in his garden, to prevent the Russians from destroying it.

The man had to leave his village once it came under Russian occupation – but not before he has securely hidden his country's flag. After the settlement was liberated, Ukrainian soldiers retrieved the prized possession, and returned it to its owner.

Photo: Stratcom Center UA

08/11/2022

Друзі, вже цієї середи запрошуємо вас приєднатися до прожовження розмови про створення дружнього для усіх міського середовища. Саме цією ідеєю маємо керуватися під відбудови зруйнованих орками українських міст.
Дивіться ефір та залишайте запитання у коментарях.
Чекаємо на вас!
https://www.facebook.com/events/1824802704537401/

02/11/2022

Кожен з нас має знати, яким чином будувати громаду для всіх.
Приєднуйтеся до ефіру 1 листопада о 19.00 та залишайте свої запитання під відео:
https://www.facebook.com/events/824943858748265/
Дякуємо за підтримку проєкту "Життя на межі" U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine

31/10/2022

Друзі, приєднуйтеся до продовження розмови про кордони у всіх їхніх вимірах.
Дякуємо за підтримку проєкту U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine
https://www.facebook.com/events/1066548567356226/

23/10/2022

Українське фулбрайтівське коло за підтримки U.S. Embassy Kyiv Ukraine розпочинає новий проєкт «Кордони/зміна кордонів/подолання кордонів» (Dordering/Rebordering/Debordering). В рамках проєкту спільно з фахівцями в різних сферах ми детально розглянемо проблеми кордонів, їхньої зміни, переосмислення, зникнення, впливу на ідентичність, існування в прикордонній зоні та інші важливі аспекти, які необхідно розуміти в умовах сьогодення.
Запрошуємо вас приєднатися до лекції Олександра Пронкевича (Oleksandr Pronkevich) "Україна як прикордонна реальність" та чекаємо на ваші запитання у коментарях під відео: https://www.facebook.com/events/1232053947352993/

21/10/2022

17/10/2022

Друзі, за підтримки Посольства США в Україні Українське фулбрайтівське коло розпочинає новий проєкт "Життя на межі: Терапія воєнної та повоєнної травми".
Проєкт включає, зокрема, серію онлайн лекцій, присвячених створенню дружнього для усіх урбаністичного простору.
Лекція №1
"Інклюзія, доступність, безбар’єрність: семантика та соціальний контекст".
Лектор
Володимир Висоцький, директор БФ «Єврейсько-українська соціальна ініціатива», співзасновник студії універсального дизайну «ORFO», експерт-консультант з питань архітектурної доступності та просторової інклюзії, автор-розробник та координатор проєктів соціалізації та соціальної інтеграції вразливих груп, урбаністичних ініціатив та освітніх проєктів для молоді, проєктів гуманітарної допомоги внутрішньо-переміщеним особам та соціально-реабілітаційним закладам, член експертної групи з розробки Національної стратегії безбар’єрності та Плану дій до неї, автор-розробник онлайн курсу «Урбаністика: базовий курс», член Музейницької ради ГО «Музей сучасного мистецтва», член журі «Форуму інклюзивності», ментор фестивалю архітектури для дітей «ARCHIKIDZ!», сертифікований фасилітатор Британської ради (програма Active Citizens).
Приєднуйтеся та залишайте запитання у коментарях під відео: https://www.facebook.com/events/5869678979743751/

19/09/2022

A new bottom of rashists in Ukraine.
A wife of a russian soldier asks him to bring a parts of uniform of killed Ukrainian soldiers and, the most important, a head of Ukrainian as her friend Lisa should be envy of such a trophy.

https://youtu.be/ypq65UMkq8A

Patches, boots, military jackets, removed by occupiers from bodies of Ukrainian defenders killed in battle, and severed heads – these are the top dreams of a...

18/09/2022

"If the choice is between a Ukrainian victory and a global nuclear war, then a nuclear war is preferable"

Here is the full translation of Egor Kholmogorov "ideas" and his hatred for Ukraine.
Seems like a continuation of the story about a full destruction of Ukraine and Ukrainians:
https://t.co/sBA31y6Ryy

Breaking News, Ukraine, World, Lifestyle and Analysis

17/09/2022

Egor Kholmogorov is a russian political figure, journalist for Russia Today channel.

He wrote a text calling for genocide of Ukrainians.

I call for full blocking and sanctions for Russia Today.

And personal sanctions for Kholmogorov.

And prosecution for him. https://t.co/D78CdFNfeU

“Egor Kholmogorov is a russian political figure, journalist for Russia Today channel. He wrote a text calling for genocide of Ukrainians. I call for full blocking and sanctions for Russia Today. And personal sanctions for Kholmogorov. And prosecution for him.”

25/08/2022

This guy says that to kill Ukrainian means to experience er****on....
That's why, he says, war is the business of youth.

02/08/2022

Maryna Shkuropat, Fulbright Scholar Program, 2016-2017

My Fulbright Visiting Scholar experience is indirectly related to 8 years of Ukraine-Russia war.

I applied for the scholarship two years after the first relocation of Horlivka Institute for Foreign Languages (HIFL) from Horlivka to Bakhmut in 2014 due to the armed conflict in the Eastern Ukraine.
The academic staff and the personnel of the Institute set themselves a task to build a new Institute from scratch. It had to be different from what we had in Horlivka – with western style management, more contemporary, more advanced and certainly more digitalized, and based on the values we believed in – democracy, commitment of the staff and the faculty and respect for our students.

It is hard to introduce groundbreaking changes when your university has little to rely on except intellect and enthusiasm of its faculty. However, we were determined to work hard and there was no force able to shake our commitment. Nothing could stop us – nor the ill-suited abandoned buildings that we had to repurpose and adapt for academic process, nor the absence of dormitories for students, even not the absence of decent accommodation for the staff and the faculty.

For me, the best way of learning things is learning best practices from others. I believed that American universities could serve as matrix of success. That is why one of the main objectives of my 2016-2017 Fulbright project was: “to study the principles of liberal education in the US, and the ways it produces engaged and reliable citizens”.
Since relocation, Horlivka Institute for Foreign Languages has always faced this specific challenge of shaping socially responsible and patriotic youth of the Eastern Ukraine. We tried to do our best to equip our students with knowledge of local and global civic development as well as intercultural knowledge and competence. Throughout 8 years of relocation Horlivka Institute for Foreign Languages has been on the frontline of winning back the minds of young people who chose to study in Ukraine through “Donbas is Ukraine” initiative of the Ukrainian government. We facilitated back adaptation of a vast majority of students coming from the occupied territories. The minds of those kids had long been under the vilifying influence of the Russian propaganda, which imposes freak images of both Ukrainian and American cultures and societies. My Fulbright year in the USC, Los Angeles changed the game: a first-hand experience of a qualified professional and a valid argumentation worked as a competitive and strong argument in favor of the Western civilisation.

Fulbright program is about research and scholarly communication, but even more than that it is about sharing experiences, and transformation of the mindset, and broadening the outlook, pushing the horizon, and setting the new goals. After spending a year in LA, I was determined to return to HIFL an agent of change. And I became one. I was impatient to introduce changes into academic programs at HIFL in order to make them more contemporary and competitive at the job market. I encouraged the faculty to develop new ones and update already existing. (It finally resulted in launching a BA program English and ICT). I used my USC experience to explain to the faculty how selection of elective courses works and how to plan new courses development so that they contributed to developing inquiring minds capable of facing and solving challenging problems of contemporary society development in Ukraine.

During my Fulbright Outreach program I made professional contacts in Florida State University, joined the National Communication Association (NCA) and in cooperation with Professor S. Yarozhynsky won the grant from NCA aimed at development and launching the course of Intercultural Communication, which was successfully launched in HIFL.

While being the Head of the International office I was responsible among other things for writing grant applications. Since 2016 Horlivka Institute for Foreign Languages enjoyed the support from the American people coming through USAID. This support came in the form of office and academic equipment, classroom and office furniture, contemporary textbooks, furniture and equipment for the freshly reconstructed dormitory etc. All in all HIFL was granted the help worth 526 000 $. (Another 900 000 € came from the European Union). Alongside with the financial support the faculty and administrative staff participated in the numerous academic and administrative staff capacity building trainings provided by the Fulbright office programs. We worked out the 5-year strategy of sustainable development, under the guidance of the Fulbright SUDUS project experts. The Strategy mapped out every sector of HIFL development. We started to work hard on its implementation.

All these factors contributed to the success story of the institute, which was promoted in Ukraine as a good example to follow. By 2022 HIFL had finally been able establish on the new grounds. We had 2 new fully equipped dormitories, one administrative and one academic building fully reconstructed, equipped and modernized, new library reaching 16 000 items (from 0), three foreign language resource centers, two computer labs, a Center for Career, a work-out room, a conference room, an assembly hall. We held Students’ Forums, scientific conferences, seminars and workshops, improved programs and servises. We were confidently looking forward to the happy future in the happy Ukraine…

Then came February, 24. HIFL managed to continue working for another month and then had to face the second relocation, which happened in April, 2022. So far, the two dorms and one academic building have been bombshelled and ruined and there is no access to the remaining one. Isn’t it a frustrating story? The students and the faculty are scatted all over Ukraine and Europe, and the administration is based on the premises of Oles Honchar Dnipro National University. Brutal, meaningless destruction —both physical and psychological—accompany the staff as they try to move on with their lives, hoping for the best, while still readying for the worst.

In 2018 a visiting trainer from the US delivered a training to the academic staff of HIFL about resilience. Today I keep asking myself, do American professors even have any idea what real resilience is? Has any of the American academic staff ever been that much involved in building capacity of their university and lost everything in the end, facing the need to start all over again? In American TV shows they find Ukrainian people’s resilience truly inspiring and declare that it deserves every bit of recognition and support. Our sincere gratitude for that. But it is for Ukrainian displaced universities (some twice, like HIFL) and displaced people to practice this resilience once again, and not lose hope, and stay in this country, just because no matter how big and bright the world is, there is no country better than the one you were born in.

This time, considering that the real world was so unkind to us, it has been decided to start a digital transformation and continue providing educational service as an online university. After all, our only hope is that the Digital universe will be the key to HIFL’s rise from ashes.

20/07/2022

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vmMTvvyVDJJ###1tdckRDOgfdTp-X_ZeEE1QrURyMis/edit?fbclid=IwAR127gm56fuJqq-VnFQyufWuMKM9CxBG-D8hO88D-rRSOT1eUvY09acZORM

Option #1: A direct letter to your Senator/Representative/President How to find your Senator/Representative: Dear Senator [Last Name], How to find your Senator (select state): https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm Dear Representative [Last Name], How to find your representative ...

18/07/2022

https://www.aseees.org/membership/valentyna-kharkhun

Join/Renew Online Individual Membership Lifetime Member List Institutional Membership Institutional Member List Member SpotlightVoices of Ukrainian Scholars: A Summer 2022 Member Spotlight Mini-Series Member Directory (login required) Member Login Submit Member News Valentyna Kharkhun ValentynaKhark...

02/07/2022

Друзі!

Вже завтра відбудеться 6-та онлайн-сесія в рамках проєкту «Сприяння інклюзивності та доступності прихистків та житла для ВПО», який реалізується за підтримки European Union in Ukraine в рамках програми Eastern Partnership Civil Society Facility.

Про "Вулиці для всіх: створення дружніх вуличних просторів" говоритимемо з Альбертас Тамашаускас, який активно доклався до міських перетворень у Маріуполі з Маріупольська міська рада, та Поладом Халіловим (Paul Chernych), який має багаторічний досвід проєктування вуличних просторів у столиці та є співзасновником студії універсального дизайну ORFO Universal Design.

Дата та час проведення - п'ятниця, 1 липня 2022 року об 18:00 за Києвом.

Участь у сесії - за реєстрацією - будь ласка, реєструйтеся за посиланням https://forms.gle/5bjjKkpBno97XiWX7

Лінк на сесію ви отримаєте на вказану при реєстрації адресу електронної пошти.
До зустрічі!

Слава Україні!

Маріупольська міська рада
ORFO Universal Design



ПС Віримо у звільнення Маріуполя від окупантів, після якого місто знову стане квітучим та комфортним для життя українців. Пам'ятаємо про кожного і кожну, хто втратив життя, здоров'я та дім через агресію росії. Переконані у тому, що справедливість не омине загарбників, і вони понесуть жорстке покарання за свої злочини.

27/06/2022

Two russian missiles stroke shopping mall in Kremenchuk, the city not far from Poltava (this region is neighbouring with Kharkiv).

‼ The occupiers fired rockets at the mall, where there were more than a thousand of civilians. This was the largest mall in the city. The mall is on fire, rescuers are fighting the fire, the number of victims is impossible to imagine.

This place pose no any danger to the Russian army. It had no any strategic value. Activity there at the moment of strike just represented the attempt of people to live a normal life, which makes occupiers so angry.

Russia continues to order its powerlessness on ordinary citizens. It is useless to hope for adequacy and humanity on her part.

Informs the Office of the President of Ukraine.

Strike was performed around 4 p.m. by Ukrainian time on June 27, 2022.
However, this is not something new in the actions of russians. They did similar or the same things in Syria and were unpunished after that.

Video of the shopping mall on fire 🔥 us below.

How many more victims and grief russia likes to bring to Ukraine in this war? Would it get away and could be unpunished again?

26/06/2022

Варте обговорення, правда? !

Шановні пані та панове!

Запрошуємо Вас на п'яту онлайн-сесію в рамках проєкту «Сприяння інклюзивності та доступності прихистків та житла для ВПО», який реалізується за підтримки European Union in Ukraine в рамках програми Eastern Partnership Civil Society Facility.

Ми поступово переходимо до цілком практичних аспектів теми доступності житла і прихистків для ВПО, і вже у середу будемо говорити про "Створення доступних меблів для облаштування тимчасового житла". Наші спікери - співзасновники peremebli.com Андрій Батін (Andrii Batin), Yuryy Granovsky та Манукьянс Олександр - мають великий практичний досвід і радо ним поділяться.

Дата та час проведення - середа, 29 червня 2022 року, 19:00 за Києвом.

Участь у сесії - за реєстрацією - будь ласка, реєструйтеся за посиланням та запрошуйте друзів - https://forms.gle/S3AHzxEFaZo3c2F97

Посилання на сесію ви отримаєте на вказану при реєстрації адресу електронної пошти, але - про всяк випадок - просимо вказати і контактний телефон.

До зустрічі!

https://www.instagram.com/peremebli/
peremebli.com

26/06/2022

24/06/2022

22/06/2022

Шановні пані та панове!
Запрошуємо Вас на третю онлайн-сесію в рамках проєкту «Сприяння інклюзивності та доступності прихистків та житла для ВПО», який реалізується за підтримки European Union in Ukraine в рамках програми Eastern Partnership Civil Society Facility.

Сесія має назву "Кому потрібна доступність? Соціальні аспекти інклюзивної відбудови". Її проведуть співзасновниця Fight For Right / Боротьба за права Iryna Vyrtosu та представниці Pro.UD Універсальний дизайн / Pro.UD Universal Design - Maryna Lebid та Елена Иванова.

Дата та час проведення 25 червня 2022 року об 11:00 за Києвом.

Участь у сесії - за реєстрацією - будь ласка, реєструйтеся за посиланням https://forms.gle/pX75Px32JUzsw7fQA

Лінк на сесію ви отримаєте на вказану при реєстрації адресу електронної пошти.

До зустрічі!

Pro.UD Універсальний дизайн / Pro.UD Universal Design
Fight For Right / Боротьба за права

19/06/2022

Друзі, приєднуйтеся. Буде точно корисно

Шановні пані та панове!

Маємо честь запросити на першу онлайн-сесію в рамках проєкту «Сприяння інклюзивності та доступності прихистків та житла для ВПО», який реалізується за підтримки European Union in Ukraine в рамках програми Eastern Partnership Civil Society Facility.

Наші сесії розроблені, в першу чергу, для волонтерів, лідерів та активістів неурядових організацій, представників місцевого самоврядування у приймаючих громадах, активної молоді - для всіх тих, хто долучений або планує долучитися до процесів організації, підтримки, обладнання та забезпечення тимчасових місць проживання для внутрішньо переміщених осіб.

Тема першої сесії - "Основи житлової політики у період пост-конфліктної/повоєнної відбудови", а відбудеться вона 20 червня 2022 року о 18:00 за Києвом.

Участь у сесії - за реєстрацією - будь ласка, реєструйтеся за посиланням https://forms.gle/LpLYS6d6NyMPtD279.

Доступно.UA
Cedos

08/06/2022

PANEL DISCUSSION
The Role of Disinformation during Wartime

Thursday, June 9
6:00 PM Kyiv Time
Registration required. Join the discussion via the Zoom link below.
Zoom link: https://cutt.ly/bHZjZHI

MODERATOR
Jessica Zychowicz
(Fulbright Program in Ukraine & IIE Kyiv Office)

SPEAKERS

Sophia Wilson
(Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL, USA)
Russian Propaganda after the Ukrainian Maidan Revolution 2013-14

Katerina Sirinyok-Dolgaryova
Fulbright Visiting Scholar 2013-2014
(Zaporizhzhia National University, Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine)
War in Ukraine and Memory Wars in the Narratives of Russian Propaganda

Yevhen Fedchenko
Fulbright Visiting Scholar 2010-2011
(Fact-checking website StopFake.org,
Mohyla School of Journalism at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine)
Is Ukraine Winning the Information War?

Yuriy Zaliznyak
Fulbright Visiting Scholar 2018-2019
(Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Lviv, Ukraine)
Journalism Standards as the Victim and the Tool
for Disinformation and Propaganda in Times of War

Language: English
Organizer: Fulbright Program in Ukraine

PANELIST BIOGRAPHIES
Sophia Wilson, Ph.D is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Wilson received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington, was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute in 2015, and taught at the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute in 2017 and 2019. She was a Jerome Hall Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Law, Society and Culture at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law in 2012-13. Sophia Wilson’s research interests include revolutionary movements, human rights, and nation-building in the post-Soviet world. She is completing her book, The Ukrainian Maidan Revolution: Causes and Nature of Social Mobilization, an extensive account of interactions between the state and the grassroots revolutionary movement, as well as Russian state propaganda about the revolution. Her articles appeared in the Research in Social Movements, Conflicts, and Change, the Journal of Law and Courts, Post-Soviet Affairs and other academic venues.

Katerina Sirinyok-Dolgaryova, Ph.D is an Associate Professor, Deputy Dean in International Affairs, Project Manager/Coordinator at Journalism Department of Zaporizhzhia National University, Ukraine with over 14 years of professional experience.
Katerina Sirinyok-Dolgaryova holds PhD in Social Communications, Master’s degrees with Honors in English Philology and International Journalism with good publication record and comprehensive knowledge in media and information literacy, global journalism and social media, media education and quality assurance. She is an expert in accrediting of study programs (certified by NAQA, Ukraine and QAA, UK). She used to work on research, international projects and academic assignments at Graceland University (USA, UGRAD Program), Southern Illinois University (USA, Fulbright Program), Utah State University (USA, IREX UASP), European University Viadrina (Germany, U-LEAD) as well as had Erasmus+ study visits to UK, Sweden, and Poland.
Her research interests are global media and journalism, new media, media and information literacy, international cooperation, research management, and project management. In 2013-2014, Katerina Sirinyok-Dolgaryova was Fulbright visiting scholar at Southern Illinois University (Carbondale, IL, USA).

Yevhen Fedchenko, Ph.D is co-founder and Chief Editor of fact-checking website StopFake.org, leading hub of expertise on Russian disinformation. He is also Director of the Mohyla School of Journalism at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine. He is advising on issues of tackling disinformation and media literacy, is an active commentator of Ukrainian politics and speaker at numerous high-level international conferences.
Yevhen spent more than 25 years with media industry, covering international stories for different types of media and leading Foreign news desk at one of main Ukrainian TV channels.
After moving to academia, he was teaching International Relations, was a co-founder of Digital Future of Journalism program for journalists and Digital Media for Universities Internet journalism curriculum development program. Now he teaches courses on International news.
His main interests are information wars, propaganda and weaponization of information, coverage of international politics in media and public diplomacy, digital journalism and innovations, journalism education in transitional societies, news standards. In 2010-2011, Yevhen Fedchenko was Fulbright visiting scholar at USC Annenberg (Los Angeles, USA).

Yuriy Zaliznyak, Ph.D is Associate Professor of Journalism at the Ivan Franko University of Lviv. Since 2001 he was an intern, reporter, editor and anchor in local, national and international newsrooms including Radio Lux (2001-2005), BBC Ukrainian Service (2002-2003), The Guardian (2003) and Radio Deutsche Welle (2004-2006), FM Halychyna (2011-2016) and Duzhe Radio (2016-2018). His dissertation (2007) was titled as “Ethical intellectualism in publicistic writings of Ivan Dziuba and Vaclav Gavel”. Further scientific interest evolved to new media, social networks and modern methods of information manipulation. Periodically he trains young journalists on multimedia storytelling in different cities of Ukraine including its capital – Kyiv. Currently he also cooperates with the ABC news as a local producer. In 2018-2019, Yuriy Zalizniak was Fulbright visiting scholar at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Urbana, IL, USA) with a project on fake news influence on journalism.

28/05/2022

“How are you?”
“Alive.”
“I am waiting for you. We will find a way out. Don’t give up.”

This is a DM chat between 22-year-old Dasha Tsykunova and her boyfriend Illia Samoilenko, an officer of the Intelligence Department of the Azov Regiment. Dasha is currently in Brno, Czech Republic. Illia was defending Mariupol at the Azovstal plant until recently. These short and infrequent messages were the only communication they had since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

On February 24, Illia wrote to Dasha: “It has started. Don’t worry and don’t be scared.” 5 minutes later the news feed exploded with messages about the beginning of a full-scale war. With her friend, Dasha headed to Boryspil by taxi. On her way, Dasha and Illia were texting, and they both confessed their love for the first time.

“I burst into tears. My friend asked me why I was crying if it was mutual. And I couldn’t help myself because the confessions shouldn’t have been made in DMs during a war. We hadn’t been dating for a long time, but our feelings turned out to be mutual, and I am happy about it,” the girl says.

Illia and Dasha met half a year before Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. They were friends, talked a lot, and built plans for the future. “Before meeting Illia, I didn’t know that men like him existed. I read about knights in fairy tales, but it was a shock to meet such a person in real life. He is a man who is certain that there must be no invaders in his home, in Ukraine,” Dasha says.

Illia is a serviceman. Dasha’s father is in the military as well, so the girl knew how to maintain a relationship with someone who made this life choice. But nobody could predict the things that would happen in Mariupol, particularly at the Azovstal plant. Illia didn’t tell Dasha a lot about what they had to go through there. He supported and calmed her down instead. But the families of other soldiers told Dasha that a glass of water and a few spoonfuls of cereal was the only meal the Ukrainian defenders at Azovstal could have during the day. She also knew about the injured without any medication, and the killed who couldn’t be taken out and buried.

“It is scary that somebody can starve to death in the 21st century. Next to the wounded suffering from pain, and their dead brothers in arms who can’t be buried. Nobody would ever want to find themselves in the conditions they did,” Dasha says.

Dasha’s relatives lived in the Donetsk Region for some time. Her grandfather took part in building the Azovstal plant in the 1970s.

“I have conflicting feelings right now. My grandpa built the Azovstal, and then my boyfriend ended up there under these conditions. I’ve always wanted to visit Mariupol. But now there is nowhere to go. I never managed to see the city where my father grew up,” says Dasha.

The girl graduated from the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. She worked as a bartender in one of Kyiv's cafes. Because of the full-scale war, she had to move to stay with her relatives in the Czech Republic. In time, she found a job there as an operator at an international company.

“I always liked to live in Ukraine. I love Kyiv very much. I had plenty of opportunities to move abroad, but I didn’t use them because I wasn’t interested. When I came to the Czech Republic, found a job, and relaxed a little bit, I saw that the situation in Mariupol was drastically getting worse,” recalls Dasha.

On the first days of the war, Dasha texted Illia that she would only be able to calm down when she hugged him. She tries to live her normal life: she works and makes herself eat and sleep to have enough energy. But there is still no calmness. She says that it will only come when Illia is next to her.

“I’ve imagined our first meeting many times. I think that when I see him, I’ll just hug him and cry. Maybe I’ll manage to say that I love him. But first I will hold him and won’t let him go. I want to finally feel that he is,” the girl says.

Dasha finds support among the relatives of other Mariupol defenders. She has recently started keeping in touch with the girls who are waiting for their husbands to come back from the war. They understand each other. Together, they addressed the world leaders and journalists with a call to save the Mariupol defenders. On May 17, Hanna Maliar, the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, announced that the operation had started. The critically injured were transported to Novoazovsk which is on the border with Russia. Others were sent to a correction facility in Olenivka near the occupied Donetsk. At least 89 more soldiers from Azovstal were taken to Russia and held at the Taganrog detention center. Ukraine is negotiating the possibility of exchange and return of Mariupol defenders to the territory controlled by Ukraine. Meanwhile, to avoid affecting the process, the authorities and families of the soldiers do not comment on the evacuation process.

At the same time, Dasha believes that it is crucial to continue telling the truth about Azov soldiers. Specifically to dispel the myth that the Azov Regiment is nazist. “The main weapon is information,” Dasha says. “It is important to emphasize that Azov is a regiment consisting of professional soldiers who have various views and have nothing to do with nazism”.

Dasha adds: “Every case of drawing attention to Mariupol matters now. Mariupol is a symbol of our freedom.”

Recorded by Tonia Andriichuk. Illustrated by Lidiia Holosko. Translated by Inna Voloska