Dec 20- An Hour for Ukraine
Stand in solidarity with Ukraine this Christmas. Switch off your festive lights. Show your support. We can see your support even in the darkness. #hourforukraine
An Hour for Ukraine
This iniative was brought to my attention by Edward Lucas.
Back in October, I read Peter Pomerantsev’s article in Time, “Russia Wants to Lock Ukraine Back in the Soviet Cellar”, on the essence of what the Russian regime was trying to achieve in the occupied territories of Ukraine and many other regions: deprive the Ukrainian population of freedom, of light- keep them in darkness, locked in cellars, in fear of being killed or raped or tortured. He writes,
It was the Ukrainian journalist Andrii Bashtivoi, now a soldier at the front of the counter-offensive, who in the opening weeks of the invasion first turned my attention to how cellars were one of the important symbols of this war. They are emblematic of how Russia wants to imprison a whole country, trap and confine it, the physical manifestation of Russia’s war aims—and its motivations.
Ever since the first weeks of the war Ukrainians have been asking the West to “protect our sky”: whether through enforcing a no fly zone, or at least by providing Ukraine with fighter jets. The sky needs protecting literally from Russian planes and missiles, but also figuratively for Ukraine’s right to define its own future. Wein the West did far too little to help, refusing to give planes and more sophisticated air defence systems. Now Ukraine is fighting for its own skies—and our future. Russia wants to lock Ukraine into the cellar of its past, but it wants to drag Europe down there too, to return us to a world where bullying states humiliate small ones—a world we thought had passed. It’s using energy to blackmail and break Europe and make the free world kiss its boots. It uses nuclear threats to bring back the nightmares of the Cold War.
Whenever I’m in Ukraine I’m always glancing up at the sky with a mix of fear and hope. Every distant rumble of thunder makes me start: is that a missile? Like some medieval villager, the sky seems full of portents, danger, hope and symbols.
This footage was shot by Stefania Battistini, an Italian reporter in Donbas, and her crew. They are sitting in the dark, listening to the mortar fire and the cackle of gun shots ringing through the night.
Thread by Ilya Kaminsky
Because of bombardments, no electricity in Odesa, Ukraine. Many say that in their neighborhoods there is no heat or water. After forty-eight hours of trying to warm up under piles of clothes, another poet friend decided to hail a cab—she decided to hail a cab not because she needed to quickly get someplace, but because she realized that she can warm up in the moving car!
Air-raid sirens keep wailing.
What's Odesa like in a blackout?
Refrigerators don't work, frozen food collected in case of a wartime emergency is gone. There is no light in people's houses, no light in their neighbors' houses, no light in the whole city.
Oleg Suslov, a friend who is the editor of Odesa Evening News e-mails:
"I'm finishing the new issue of the newspaper & an air-raid siren begins again, Russia sent 60 missiles at us & no one knows where they are going. Air-raids are non stop for hours now. But let me tell you about the new issue, such good stories..."
Meanwhile, as refugees are leaving the city and businesses close, as air-raid sirens continue wail, while there is no electricity and often also no water or heat, the poets gather to share their poems.
This is December in war-time Odesa.
Friends, if you have the means during this holiday season, will you support Odesa wrters in this time of invasion? I realize, everyone’s been horrified by the ongoing news, and many in USA say they are fatigued. But if we won’t help fellow writers—who will?
This evening, I’ll be shutting everything off for an hour for Ukraine. Please consider doing the same.
Monique
