Ukrainian soldiers defend the last scrap of the Luhansk Oblast. Soon, it too may fall into the hands of the Russians. Thick black smoke rises above the area. A Ukrainian refinery, bombed by the Russians, has been burning for several days in the vicinity of Lysychansk. The refinery is surrounded by picturesque canola fields – canola, like sunflower, is one of the key crops for local agriculture. …
YAROSLAV HRYTSAK, Ukrainian historian: With his rockets, Putin is also destroying the pro-Russian orientation in Ukraine. Today it is associated with the war and its consequences. PAWEŁ PIENIĄŻEK: How did February 24 find you? JAROSŁAW HRYCAK: At six thirty in the morning, I was awakened by a phone call from Myroslav Marynovych [vice-rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, social activist – ed.]. He said that …
Lyman has become another city that the war has reached. Some residents are deciding to leave at the last minute. There are thirteen people standing by the corrugated steel supermarket hall. All of them have decided on the first day of May to leave Lyman, population 22,000, in Donetsk Oblast. On the road near the store lay branches cut by shrapnel. Two shots are heard, one whistle …
After calls by the President of Ukraine, volunteers from abroad have joined the fight against Russia. Among them are Poles. Not only Ukrainian soldiers are stationed in the dense forest, where the singing of birds mixes with the roar of artillery. One team is preparing positions. They dig deep. This is due to a Colombian who prepared for battle in the jungle. “His first time, he dug …
The Ukrainian army is taking back towns near Kharkiv. It may soon regain control over other sections of the border. A burnt out Akatsiya self-propelled gun stands in the middle of the road near a destroyed house, right next to a shell crater. The torn hull, the remains of the turret with a long heavy barrel, broken caterpillar tread and a pile of casings litter the ground. “This …
The Russian army is trying to cut off Donbas from the rest of Ukraine. Somewhere east of Kharkiv, on a now pivotal stretch of the front, Ukrainian troops are fighting to frustrate this plan. There are no extensive, deep and winding trenches here, which are associated with war fronts. You can only see pits carved into the ground, covered with branches and hay, scattered over the territory …
My Response A conference in my honor, “Small Things, Deep Resonance: The Sociology of Jeffrey C. Goldfarb,” was convened at the New School for Social Research on April 30th. It was planned as a meeting of my colleagues, many former students, on the major themes of my life’s work. As it was being organized, I tried to convince myself and the organizers that it should not be envisioned …
By opposing Trump, she is opposing Trumpism, an authoritarian, xenophobic, and racist movement that has taken over the Republican party. It’s now official. Liz Cheney has been defeated by a Trumpist in this week’s Wyoming Republican primary. That Cheney lost in a landslide is a surprise to no one, including Cheney herself. For the moment that Cheney openly challenged Donald Trump, and by inference reproached every single Republican party …
Thousands of Kharkiv residents hide from the war in metro stations. They hope to return to their homes soon. There is not much free space at the large Heroiv Pratsi (Heroes of Labor) metro station. About eight hundred people take refuge here. The policemen who keep order say that at its peak there were over two thousand. According to 33-year-old Marina, it was hardly possible to get in …
Not everyone wants to leave the Donbas, which is threatened by war. Some residents are ready to stand up for it. Like Julia, a 34-year-old Information Technology lecturer who volunteered for the territorial defense after the attack on Kramatorsk. It was another day of evacuations from Kramatorsk, a city of 150,000 residents, in eastern Ukraine. 34-year-old IT lecturer Julia Dovinova wanted to help somehow. All her volunteer …
