Author: Syndicated

It is a gloomy April morning. My hands are freezing but they share due to emotion and not temperature. I am preparing to see with my own eyes what I have only watched on TV and internet video. I am visiting the Hero City of Irpin. I arrived in Irpin by a new route from Kyiv, one that looked the same before the war. There was a small checkpoint, like one that had existed since February 2014. But now there was a stain in the road from a burned truck that been recently removed. Residents from Irpin had desperately...

Can spring be black and white? Is there eternal February? Are golden words devalued? Unfortunately, Ukraine knows the answers to all these questions. Unfortunately, the answers are “yes.” Every year on May 8, together with the entire civilized world, we honor everyone who defended the planet from Nazism during World War II. Millions of lost lives, crippled destinies, tortured souls and millions of reasons to say to evil: never again! We knew the price our ancestors paid for this wisdom. We knew how important it is to preserve it and pass it on to posterity. But we had no...

Irpin, Bucha, and Hostomel became the frontlines of the unprovoked Russian invasion for a month as Putin’s forces attempted to capture the capital city Kyiv. Irpin was the first of the trio of cities to become free from Russian occupation on March 28. The liberation of Bucha and Hostomel followed on April 1. Also on the same day, Ukrainian Armed Forces regained control over Demidov, Dymer, and Ivankov, towns that had suffered from brutal occupation since the first days of the war. Reports were gathered from numerous sources in Irpin and participants in the counterattack, to create a chronicle...

Kyiv-based volunteer Antonina Dembytska has interviewed Ukrainians who have found their lives engulfed in war. Her mission has been to preserve the voices of witnesses for the history, and the future war crime tribunal against Russia. She recently had a conversation with Anastasia Pochernyaeva, a resident of Irpin. Antonina Dembytska: Please, introduce yourself and say if you give consent for the processing of personal data, and tell briefly about yourself, about your life before the war. Anastasia Pochernyayeva: Very well. Hello, my name is Anastasia Pochernyayeva, I was born in 1987. Before the war I used to live in...

Irpin, a commuter town on the northwest edge of Kyiv, was once famous for its peace and quiet in comparison with the buzz of the Ukrainian capital. But since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the town has become synonymous with shelling and indiscriminate violence. As Russian troops made a brutal attempt to take Kyiv, they were stopped on the outskirts of the capital. Places like Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel were quickly transformed into a battleground, where civilians were caught in Russian shelling, air raids and direct violence by Russian troops. Many who chose to evacuate had to do...