POLTAVA REGION—Sukhorabivka is a village like any other. A village of pensioners and of farm hands, with an imposing warehouse housing modern tractors right in the center and fields on its periphery. “There is no more noble endeavor in the world than to make bread in the name of peace on Earth” declares a Soviet-era inscription inside the building of the village council.
It has a bit of an unusual topography for sure: on the map, you can see the village looping around a small wood bordered by a deep moat before squeezing itself against the meandering, marshy branch of the Psel river. The village’s main street crosses the river once, then forks at the decrepit World War 2 memorial to warp around the quasi-island that is the wood. There’s only one building on that island, a school of pale red bricks built in the 30s that closed down in 2021 and now houses refugees from Bakhmut, Kharkiv and Zaporizhya. Further down, the river is barred by a small hydroelectric power station.
There’s a bit less than a thousand people living in Sukhorabivka. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, about 30 local men were mobilized in the Ukrainian military. Of those 30 or so, two have been reported as missing in action, while two others were confirmed killed. When I arrived in Sukhorabivka last Friday, the roses dropped during the funeral procession of 55-year-old Oleksandr Khlystun were still bright red against the muddy road leading to the cemetery.
When he was mobilized in September, Khlystun told his sister—his only living relative—he did not expect to come back. Khlystun was killed on January 21 when a Russian missile hit Myrnohrad, a town on the rear of the Donetsk front where his unit had rotated after a stint on the frontline. He was buried ten days later next to his parents—larger towns across Ukraine now build dedicated spaces in their cemeteries for soldiers killed in the war, but Sukhorabivka is probably too small for that to make sense. I said two men from the village had already been killed in the war, but there’s a third soldier buried in the village—he had never set foot there, but his mother relocated to Sukhorabivka after the beginning of the Russian invasion, and his ashes followed her.
There’s nothing particularly special about Surokhabivka. The things the head of the village told me—the school closing down, young people leaving, Shahed drones flying over, mobilization making it harder for the local farms to work—I’ve heard time and time again. That, I think, is the point: I went to one of Ukraine’s nearly 30,000 villages, and in that random, unremarkable village, 30 men have been enlisted to fight the Russian army, two have disappeared, two more have already been confirmed dead.
Something to read
Hromadske (in Ukrainian & Russian) | What should be reformed in the Armed Forces to win the war | January 29
A sobering but timely piece as the much-speculated dismissal of top Ukrainian commander Valery Zaluzhny now looks imminent. Talking with field commanders, soldiers and military analysts, Hromadske lays down in this piece a long list of issues reportedly plaguing the Ukrainian military. Some of them stem from what is described as a still excessively rigid command structure, and a military machine that remains Soviet at its core. “They call you and say: in an hour, ten people are going to attack. And as a commander, I don't have time to properly plan this operation. No one gives it to me” one source tells Hromadske. The piece also mentions the sensitive issue of soldiers refusing to follow orders. One source claims the number of refuseniks is growing, while another links the issue to another major problem— a growing shortage of NCOs.
Holod Media (in Russian) | “They already feel different, they aren’t so brave anymore” | February 4
Three Ukrainians who fled the war to the Russian city of Belgorod tell Russian opposition media Holod about their experience of the Russian invasion and of the December 30 shelling of Belgorod.
Yuliya, 24 years-old:
And at the same time, I have negative feelings when Belgorodians started posting "POV: you are a Belgorodian" or "Belgorodians, beloved, hold on. Belgorod is Russia." They think only of themselves. When explosions go off, they get scared, but only for their lives. They do not think about the fact that at this moment Kharkiv is being shelled. My friends write to me: “How are you in Belgorod? We are worried about you.” And I am just very sad.
But nobody talks about Donetsk at all: neither Russians who sympathize with Belgorod, nor Ukrainians who sympathize with Ukrainian cities. Donetsk is still a gray zone that no one sympathizes with. This sense of abandonment is also fueled by the Donetsk authorities. There are no bomb shelters in the city, no basements - they are all boarded up and closed. There are no sirens or alarms. The shelling just starts, and you are either dead or you aren’t.
Zmina | Illegal detention, torture and ill-treatment of the civilian population of Ukraine: similarity of the practices of committing crimes in the regions occupied by Russia in 2022 | January 2024
Rather than focusing on one specific place, this report by Ukrainian human rights NGO Zmina looks at Russia’s overall use of arrests and torture in the occupied territories. The report’s value is, I think, to make the systematic nature of these crimes abundantly clear by showing the similarities in the methods used across the occupied territories. “The victims also describe the same type of methods of escort during delivery to the place of interrogation. The detainees were put on a bag on their heads, led with their hands tied back, in a bent position”
ICYMI
Stories from legacy Western media published over the week-end (and today)
The Guardian / ‘They told me we’re all Russians’: fears grow over ‘re-education’ of Ukrainian children
The New York Times / ‘They Come in Waves’: Ukraine Goes on Defense Against a Relentless Foe
The Wall Street Journal / Low on Ammo, Ukraine Tries to Build a Million Explosive Drones
Bloomberg / The Most Popular Man in Ukraine Has Become a Problem for Zelenskiy
Politico / Ukraine and Russia battle over the bodies of plane crash casualties
Al Jazeera / ‘I have no fear’: How Ukrainian tech founders are outlasting Russia’s war
NPR / A Ukrainian kindergarten teacher returns to the classroom
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