The Long War #32
A look at Ukrainian regional media, and stories from Western outlets you may have missed
Hi everyone, welcome to 2024 and welcome to this 32nd issue of ‘The Long War’. I hope you were all able to get some rest during these holidays and, if you’re in Ukraine, that you and your loved ones have been staying safe. This will be a fairly short issue that I’m writing from France—I’ll be heading back to Ukraine this month, so you can expect more soon.
I thought I would start the year with a few stories I came across in Ukrainian regional media, with the hope of giving you a glimpse of the issues Ukrainians deal with as the country is soon to enter its third year of full-scale war. You’ll also find down below a selection of interesting stories that recently came out in Western media, just in case you were away from your computer these past days. And as always: if you find this issue interesting and want to see more, any support (from a paid subscription to a one-time donation to just telling your friends or colleagues about the newsletter) is very much appreciated!
We’ll start in Western Ukraine, where Lviv-based outlet Zaxid had the local angle on the news that 230 Ukrainians came home from Russian detention on January 3rd as part of the biggest POW exchange in months: six of those, Zaxid reports, came from the Lviv region.
Further south, in the city of Mykolaiv (right between the Odesa and Kherson regions), local outlet Nikvesti wrote about the end-of-the-year press conference held by regional head Vitaly Kim. Among the many issues raised was the problem of water supply (which has plagued the city since the beginning of the Russian invasion), with Kim reporting that 132 new wells had been dug last year but dismissing reports by local investigative journalists that equipment for restoring water supply had been bought at inflated prices.
Speaking of inflated prices—the Russian invasion did not prevent Galka, a media based in Ivano-Frankivsk, from publishing its traditional compilation of the year’s “scandalous public tenders”. Noteworthy controversies include the purchase by the local city council of 158 flowers (individual flowers, not bouquets), at a cost of $13 per flower and without holding a proper tender (something local authorities justified by “wartime requirements”), as well as dubious drone purchases by local municipalities that did not go through the ProZorro public tender system.
In Cherkasy, a city in central Ukraine nested on the banks of the Dnieper river, local media “1800” took a look at the religious situation in the region with an interview of the local Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (created in 2019 and not to be confused with the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church). According to the cleric, 84 parishes of the rival Church joined the new Church since the beginning of the Russian invasion, though only 18 of those came with their priests. Most parishioners, he says, have quickly adapted to the changes though some still favor the “old style”—masses held in Church Slavonic, and Christmas on January 7.
In the Donbas town of Slovyansk, the “Karachun” outlet brought up one of those topics that everyone knows about and, for now, chooses to ignore: Internally Displaced People (IDPs) coming back home without informing the authorities of their return, meaning they still receive the (very meager) payments associated with the IDP status. One explanation is simply that, in these economically traumatized towns and villages, these subsidies can represent (along with pensions) the only source of income. But locals, the author writes, also live with the constant fear of having to flee once more if the war came back, and do not want to go again through the grueling bureaucratic process of registering as an IDP.
Finally, 200 kilometers to the West, in Poltava, local outlet “Poltavshyna” continues to track reports of soldiers from the region killed at the frontline: 14 more dead were announced in the last week of December, including a 21 year old soldier killed by artillery shelling on December 27 in the Kherson region. It’s a grim tally that Poltavshyna is (as far as I know) one of the only outlets in Ukraine to do, using official statements from city and village councils to give an incomplete record of the region’s losses (official casualties figures remain a tightly kept state secret). I went over Poltavshyna’s weekly reports of the past year, and here are the monthly figures as recorded by the outlet:
ICYMI
Recently-published stories from Western media
Associated Press / How Ukrainian special forces secured a critical Dnipro River crossing in southern Ukraine
The Washington Post / Ukraine Marines recount deadly mission to free towns east of Dnieper River
Wired / To Beat Russia, Ukraine Needs a Major Tech Breakthrough
Financial Times / ‘I want to live’: Russians defect to Ukraine by calling army hotline
The New York Times / A Trophy in Ruins: Evidence Grows That Russia Controls Marinka
OpenDemocracy / How Ukrainian women are bearing the brunt of frontline life
The Guardian / ‘An incredible miracle’: Ukrainian families find solace in British homes
The Wall Street Journal / Did Ukraine Miss an Early Chance to Negotiate Peace With Russia?
The New York Times / ‘It’s State Propaganda’: Ukrainians Shun TV News as War Drags on