Dispatches from Ukraine. Day 383.
As Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues and the war rages on, reliable sources of information are critical. Forbes gathers information and provides updates on the situation.
Kherson region. Russian forces shelled the region 29 times yesterday, striking residential areas and causing the deaths of three civilians.
Ukrainian forces have killed more than 1,000 Russian troops over the past 24 hours, the General Staff reports. Total Russian combat losses to date now top 159,000 troops. The latest battles also have cost Russia eight tanks, seven APVs, four artillery systems, two anti-aircraft systems, and four vehicles and fuel tanks.
Russian forces have carried out the forcible deportation of more than 2,000 Ukrainian orphans during the invasion. Iryna Vereshchuk, the Minister of Reintegration, noted that this figure accounts only for registered fatherless children. Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s Commissioner for Human Rights, has warned that the total number of displaced children, including those with parents, could exceed 150,000.
Belgium has recognized the famine imposed on Ukraine by the Soviet regime in 1932-33 as genocide. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the vote as “historic.” “I’m thankful to Belgium for this important decision for every Ukrainian, for this deeply symbolic step today!” Twenty six countries now acknowledge the deliberate mass starvation in Ukraine during those years as genocide.
A Russian court in the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic, a region of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, has sentenced Maksym Butkevych, a Ukrainian human rights activist and a founder of Hromadske radio, to 13 years in prison for alleged war crimes. Hromadske Radio (Ukrainian for “Public Radio”) is a Ukrainian non-governmental and nonprofit media organization. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba condemned the conviction as “illegal, null and void” and called on the international community to demand Butkevych’s release, along with those of other Ukrainians illegally imprisoned by Russia.
Hundreds of people assembled at Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti central square on March 10 to pay their last respects to Dmytro “Da Vinci” Kotsiubailo, killed in a battle near Bakhmut three days earlier. Among them were President Zelenskyy, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyy, intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. Zelenskyy presented to Oksana Kotsiubailo, Da Vinci’s mother, the Cross of Military Merit, which her son was posthumously awarded. Kotsiubailo was buried at Askold’s Grave, one of the capital’s most distinctive tracts, where anyone can visit.
On The Culture Front.
In New York City, the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival will return to the Kaufman Music Center for three concerts this week, March 17 to 19. This year’s festival will honor Borys Liatoshynsky, a founder of Ukrainian contemporary music in the 20th century. Musicians from Ukraine will join local artists to perform Liatoshynsky’s music along with works of his students, members of the Kyiv Avant-Garde, including Valentyn Sylvestrov. The festival will highlight Ukraine’s distinct cultural identity and introduce Ukrainian contemporary music to audiences beyond the nation’s borders.
The Kyiv-based band Boombox has embarked on a North American tour, with concerts in New York City, Detroit, Toronto and other cities. Boombox’s front man Andriy Khlyvnyuk became known around the globe a year ago for singing an old Ukrainian protest song, “The Red Viburnum In The Meadow,” before canceling his US tour so that he could enlist. Legendary rock group Pink Floyd composed around his vocal a single, Hey Hey, Rise Up, its first original music since 1994. Other world-known musicians then picked up the tune and brought it to international fame. Khlyvnyuk, wounded by shrapnel shortly after joining the army, is now touring again and raising funds for the Ukrainian armed forces.
Radio 477, a show about jazz in Kharkiv, directed by Virlana Tkach; written by a German Peace Prize winner in 2022, a Kharkiv poet and punk-rocker Serhiy Zhadan; performed by Yara Arts Group is on view at La Mama Theater in New York City through March 19.
By Daria Dzysiuk, Alan Sacks