Now that the curfew in Kyiv begins at midnight instead of 11 PM, it’s beginning to resemble a normal city. A normal city periodically struck by Iranian drones sent by russia. Humans do have an awful capacity for adaptation.
I remember the luxury of thinking that I can spend my life pursuing dreams of what I want that life to be. Is that why I’m now living in the midst of a 21st-century war?
The world is waiting for Ukraine’s much anticipated counteroffensive. This is the general atmosphere I sense from abroad. You know, waiting for somebody else to do something feels an awful lot like boredom.
This past week Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Defense publicly requested that Ukrainian journalists, military experts, analysts, etc. not discuss the details of the country’s imminent counteroffensive.
So Ukrainian news programs and talk shows focus on russia: russia’s weakening military power, conflicts between russian elites, the potential of russia disintegrating, russia’s political relationship with China, russia’s announcement to move its nuclear weapons into Belarus. They talk about European and American responses to russia’s actions too.
Yes, we should all be studying the enemy. But it’s one thing to analyze russia and speculate about possible future events in an abstract way, filling the time while you WAIT for russia to weaken or self-destruct or make its next move (as if your intellectual distance puts you safely out of range of russian missiles). It’s quite another thing to study the enemy with an eye toward improving your own chances of dealing a decisive blow that will force your adversary to retreat and keep them from attacking again. Or do you not think of russia as your adversary? Do you not see this is a battle where you either win or cease to exist?
***
Yesterday I watched Navalny, which was recently named “Best Documentary Feature Film” at the Academy Awards. It’s a very engaging story that presents the russian opposition figure as the star of a “thriller” centered on his 2020 poisoning. It follows his remarkable recovery and participation in the investigation revealing how the russian authorities tried to kill him. The film’s main characters—Alexei Navanly; his wife, Yulia; Bellingcat investigative journalist Christo Grozev—are portrayed as people who use the Internet (like you and me) whose actions and insistence influence the course of history.
We see Yulia broadcast her fight to gain access to her poisoned husband, who lies unresponsive in a Siberian hospital, on social media until through international intervention Navalny is airlifted to Germany. Grozev describes some of the simple procedures he used to pinpoint a pool of suspects who could be responsible for the poisoning. Navalny’s brilliant “prank call” (pretending to be an FSB agent) to a scientist among the suspects, who unwittingly describes in detail how the poisoning was carried out, is captured on camera in a scene that defies imagination.
Breaking the story of uncovering his poisoners live on international media, Navalny sits before a wall postered with a map of russia and photos of the various suspects, connected by pieces of colored yarn. “This scheme, which looks like it’s from the movies,” he says, “is a real scheme with real people, Putin on the very top.”
That is the key to this film’s appeal: these are real people and they are actors. They masterfully use the Internet and social media as instruments to capture the attention of millions. Visibility in public space has always been a foundational condition for politics. But Navalny’s own fate—unceremoniously arrested in the airport upon his return to russia on January 17, 2021, right on camera, amidst a sea of supporters and journalists who had come to meet him (though many were arrested by riot police before the plane touched down)—demonstrates that public visibility is no protection against authoritarian abuses of power.
Watching Navalny, it’s easy to be stirred by the dream of a citizen uprising in russia that stands on an anti-corruption platform. It’s easy to admire those individuals in the film who don’t give up and to fantasize about my own potential to change the world (if only I had more energy, if only I didn’t procrastinate so much, if I just had better connections and worked harder…).
For all their genuine courage and ingenuity, the stars of Navalny appear as mythical figures. Not unlike the Ukrainian defenders who you find so inspiring. I fear that most Americans are watching Ukrainians defend themselves from russia’s assault on their independent existence in the same way that they watch a film about a charismatic russian opposition figure: like reality TV that’s more engaging than anything Hollywood could dream up.
I imagine the Western taxpayers sitting at home wondering when Ukraine’s counteroffensive will materialize, “Hey, have they lost the script? The pacing is too slow. Maybe hire a new screenwriter? This isn’t what I paid for!”
Yes, the decision to honor Navalny at the Academy Awards, offering a platform to “good russians” (who are only good at insisting they bear no responsibility for russia’s invasion of Ukraine) while refusing again to allow Ukraine’s President Zelensky to address the awards ceremony’s audience, is political. It intentionally looks away from the war russia has launched in Ukraine against the Western world. Its fundamental political message is to uphold a commitment to detached spectatorship of world affairs.
***
Meanwhile at Yale University this week architects and urbanists discussed their vision of “The Reborn Mariupol.” No mention in the event announcement that the “city in Ukraine vastly impacted by the current war happenings” is now under russian occupation, that 90% of the city was destroyed in russia’s brutal campaign to seize it, or that by official counts over 23,000 residents were killed (while many more were buried hastily in courtyards or never retrieved from the rubble and historian Timothy Snyder puts the number around 100,000).
Yes, someone should already be thinking about rebuilding when the decimated city returns to Ukrainian control (and this design team was hired by the Ukrainian government). But bringing this aspirational discussion to American students now, while the war is far from won, is an indignity to those continuing to defend Ukraine (and those dying each day in combat) and to those who have lost people and homes in Mariupol.
“Our speakers’ message of hope and inspiration will resonate with all those who are passionate about building better communities and creating a brighter future for all.” Could the university event’s organizers really be unaware that their breezy, universalizing language sounds like russian propaganda?
Your insistence on living a dream is killing us all.
***
My current mood in Ukraine is one of immeasurable loss. Stanislav Turina’s poem, recently posted on Facebook (29.03.2023) captures it. Here’s my translation:
He was buried on a bad day
and she — on a beautiful day
Another one was buried on a strange day.
And then another was buried on an ordinary day
Someone was buried on a very unusual day
Someone on a warm day
And they were buried on unique days, which never ever repeat, there are days like that
And they were buried on black days and on gray workdays
They were buried on short days
Some days the funerals were the kind where people say, “if only this day had never come and tomorrow would arrive sooner”
(to be continued)
PS Stanislav, an artist, has been supporting his friends in the Ukrainian Armed Forces by purchasing much-needed equipment and other items for over a year now. One friend just returned from a tour of duty in the Donetsk region. You can help her unit buy two AGM Global Vision PVS-14 Advanced Performance Night Vision Monoculars.
Credit card: https://send.monobank.ua/jar/9LHxdG6Aob
Paypal: Katijushia@gmail.com
The westerners impatient for the counter-offensive should call their representatives and tell them to send the arms necessary - and be quick about it. Months ago Ukraine said they needed 400 tanks. The west promised 140. Ukraine said they need F-15 fighter jets. The west promised none.
I like this sentence
I remember the luxury of thinking that I can spend my life pursuing dreams of what I want that life to be. Is that why I’m now living in the midst of a 21st-century war?