#ukrainian fables

[grrrenadine]

A piece I made for Of Folk and Fable Tarot — a collaborative project where artists drew creatures and stories from their cultures. This is The Magician, as represented by Ivan Tsarevitch, the Fire Bird, and the Grey Wolf, a classic Russian/Ukrainian/Georgian fairy tale. I love me a good-hearted wolf shapeshifter! 

The project has already been fully funded on Kickstarter (yay!) but give it a look if it sounds like your thing. 

[mariacallous]

Igor Salikov was a Russian GRU officer and former Wagner PMC fighter who defected after witnessing war crimes in Ukraine. Since 2014, he participated in Russia’s covert takeover of eastern Ukraine under the direction of Vladislav Surkov.

In a bombshell interview with Russian human rights activist, Gulagu.net founder Vladimir Osechkin, Salikov described how Surkov carefully crafted the narrative of a separatist uprising led by locals.

Russian proxies like Salikov were restricted to Soviet-era equipment to mask their involvement. Salikov even witnessed how forces under Aleksandr Zakharchenko deliberately shelled Russian-held areas like Donetsk cemetery, blaming Ukraine to manufacture pretexts for escalation.

Salikov realized no true “liberation” was underway – residents were pawns in a larger geopolitical scheme. Through propaganda, isolated incidents were exaggerated into fables of Ukrainian brutality used to justify further bloodshed. But on the ground, most citizens prioritized stability over external manipulation sold as “liberation.”

Salikov’s insider perspectives expose the lies and hybrid warfare tactics that enabled Russia’s long-term campaign. The interview will likely be used within the framework of an international investigation, and in the work of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

We found this interview so important that, after writing its short overview, we created the English subtitles for the entire 2 hours of the video. Below is their shortened text version, adapted for clarity.

[evergreen-dryad]

Put in the language and form of a fable, it makes this tale immensely readable and accessible. What seems like a comfy tale of the English countryside and a farm and its animals with cute names like 'Bluebell' and 'Clover' quickly devolves from slight inequality (when the pigs keep the milk and apples for themselves, reasoning 'oh, they are the brain workers of the farm') to betrayal and the horror of a totalitarian government, once again replicating what came before the animals rebelled against men.

It's good this tale was told simply and clearly so no fancy word could be used to twist round it, like Squealer did as the propaganda. It's also a small thin book of 100+ pages. Plot felt very quick, true economy of word usage here. Characters are super memorable, each one distinct, and when there isn't a distinct one it's a mass of them. It's essentially post-war non-fiction dressed as fairytale, with no jargon, and it's described almost objectively? So there's no question of bias.

heart broke for boxer. no other words

when the sheep bleated 'four legs good, two legs bad' (the simplification of the motto) I kept dreading that this would one day be used against the poultry as discrimination. Oh nooo. It twisted to 'two legs better', reversing back horrifically to when they were still under men

I thought, Good for Mollie for escaping early when she did, she knew what she wanted and it was to live in the luxury she was used to. Even if that's depicted as a coward.

Squealer is good at what he does, and in turn describes how the media works, chillingly. 'Now when Squealer described the scene so graphically, it seemed to the animals that they did remember it.' I myself had to reread again just to make sure what exactly had happened. The animals didn't have the luxury of a reread.

it hurt to see the pigs keep twisting things around from a loss to a victory, a death to a celebration, a sale to constant enemies' persecution, etc. And of course, the changing of the commandments, the ideals which they had all worked for, to suit only themselves as the exception. The Constant Distraction of Events

i also thought it was good orwell had both insisted on no royalties for translations for countries too poor, and himself paid for Russian editions [APPENDIX II - preface to Ukrainian edition]

[nicklloydnow]

“And so, as I stand today to receive a peace prize, I ask myself, “What does the world of fable have to tell us about peace?”

The news is not very good. Homer tells us that peace comes after a decade of war, when everyone we care about is dead and Troy has been destroyed. The Norse myths tell us that peace comes after the Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods, when the gods destroy their traditional foes but are also destroyed by them. And the “Panchatantra” tells us that peace—the death of the owls and the victory of the crows—is achieved only through an act of treachery. To abandon the legends of the past for a moment and look at this summer’s twin fables, the film “Oppenheimer” reminds us that peace came only after two atom bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, were dropped on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; while the box-office monster called “Barbie” makes clear that unbroken peace and undiluted happiness, in a world where every day is perfect, exist only in pink plastic.

And here we are gathered to speak of peace, when war is raging not very far away—a war born of one man’s tyranny and greed for power and conquest—and when another bitter conflict has exploded in Israel and the Gaza Strip. Peace, right now, feels like a fantasy born of a narcotic smoked in a pipe. Even the meaning of the word is a thing on which the combatants cannot agree. Peace, for Ukraine, means more than a cessation of hostilities. It means, as it must mean, a restoration of seized territory and a guarantee of its sovereignty. Peace, for Ukraine’s enemy, means a Ukrainian surrender. The same word, with two incompatible definitions. Peace for Israel and for Palestinians feels even further away.

(…)

If my work has been influenced by fables, there is also something decidedly fabulist about a peace prize. I like the idea that peace itself might be the prize—that this jury of wise benefactors is so infinitely powerful that they are able to bestow upon a single individual, and no more, one year’s award of peace. True, blessed peace, not trivial contentment, paix ordinaire, but a fine vintage of Pax Frankfurtiana, a whole year’s supply of it, delivered to your door, elegantly bottled. That’s an award I’d be very happy to receive. I am even thinking of writing a story about it, “The Man Who Received Peace as a Prize.”

(…)

My fate, over the past many years, has been to drink from the bottle marked Freedom and therefore to write without any restraint those books that came to my mind to write, and now, as I am on the verge of publishing my twenty-second volume, I have to say that on twenty-one of those twenty-two occasions the elixir has been well worth drinking. On the remaining occasion, namely, the publication of my fourth novel, I learned—many of us learned—that freedom can create an equal and opposite reaction from the forces of unfreedom, and I learned, too, how to face the consequences of that reaction, and to continue, as best I could, to be as unfettered an artist as I had always wished to be. I learned, too, that many other writers and artists, exercising their freedom, also faced the forces of unfreedom, and that, in short, freedom can be a dangerous wine to drink. But that made it more necessary, more essential to defend. I confess there have been times when I’d rather have drunk the Peace elixir and spent my life sitting under a tree wearing a blissful, beatific smile, but that was not the bottle the peddler handed me.

We live in a time I did not think I would see in my lifetime, a time when freedom—and in particular freedom of expression, without which the world of books could not exist—is everywhere under attack from reactionary, authoritarian, populist, demagogic, narcissistic, careless voices; when places of education and libraries are subject to hostility and censorship; and when extremist religion and bigoted ideologies have begun to intrude in areas of life in which they do not belong. And there are also progressive voices being raised in favor of a new kind of bien-pensant censorship, one which appears virtuous, and which many people have begun to see as a virtue. So freedom is under pressure from the left as well as the right, the young as well as the old. This is something new, and made more complicated by our new tool of communication, the Internet, on which well-designed pages of malevolent lies sit side by side with the truth, and it is difficult for many people to tell which is which; and our social media, where the idea of freedom is every day abused to permit, very often, a kind of online mob rule, which the billionaire owners of these platforms seem increasingly willing to encourage—and to profit by.

What do we do about free speech when it is so widely abused? We should still do, with renewed vigor, what we have always needed to do: to answer bad speech with better speech, to counter false narratives with better narratives, to answer hate with love, and to believe that the truth can still succeed even in an age of lies. We must defend it fiercely and define it as broadly as possible, so, yes, we should of course defend speech that offends us; otherwise we are not defending free expression at all. Let a thousand and one voices speak in a thousand and one different ways.

To quote Cavafy, “the barbarians are coming today,” and what I do know is that the answer to philistinism is art, the answer to barbarianism is civilization, and in any war it may be that artists of all sorts—filmmakers, actors, singers, and, yes, those who practice the ancient art of the book—can still, together, turn the barbarians away from the gates.”

“The survey, conducted from October 19 to October 25, found that 70 percent of Russians would support Putin should he decide to end the conflict this week.

However, if ending the war would include Russia returning the territories that it has occupied and annexed throughout the conflict, only a third (34 percent) of respondents said they would support that decision.

(…)

In its latest poll, the Levada Center surveyed 1,608 people across Russia. The results suggest that 20 months into Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, public support for the conflict has dropped significantly.

The results are significant given that stringent laws passed in Russia in March 2022 made criticizing the Russian military and the war in Ukraine illegal. Many are believed to answer public opinion polls on the topic dishonestly, fearing retribution.

(…)

An August poll by the Levada Center showed that just 38 percent of respondents "definitely" support the actions of Russia's armed forces in Ukraine.

That is in contrast to results from a February 2022 survey from the research organization, conducted when Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Results from that poll, which asked the same question, showed 48 percent of respondents said they "definitely" supported the army's actions in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said on multiple occasions that he will not comply with the Kremlin's non-negotiable conditions for peace talks, including that Kyiv must accept the September 2022 annexation of four of its regions—Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—following referendums called by Putin that were deemed illegal by the international community.

Ukraine has said that any peace deal must make void Russia's annexations of its territory, and that the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Putin annexed in 2014, must be reversed.

Zelensky has pushed a 10-step "peace formula," which includes radiation and nuclear safety; food security; energy security; the release of all prisoners and deported persons; implementation of the U.N. Charter and restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity and the world order; withdrawal of Russian troops and cessation of hostilities; restoration of justice; countering ecocide; preventing escalation; and finally, confirmation of the end of the war.

Russia has maintained that any peace deal must include "the entry of four [Ukrainian] regions into Russia," something that Kyiv is unlikely to budge on.”

“The US and Israel are exploring options for the future of the Gaza Strip, including the possibility of a multinational force that may involve American troops if Israeli forces succeed in ousting Hamas, people familiar with the matter said.

The people said the conversations have been impelled by a sense of urgency to come up with a plan for the future of Gaza now that a ground invasion has begun. A second option would establish a peacekeeping force modeled on one that oversees a 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, while a third would see Gaza put under temporary United Nations oversight.

(…)

“We can’t have a reversion to the status quo with Hamas running Gaza,” Blinken, who will travel to Israel on Friday, told the Senate Appropriations Committee. “We also can’t have — and the Israelis start with this proposition themselves — Israel running or controlling Gaza.”

(…)

Israeli officials have said repeatedly that they don’t intend to occupy Gaza, but they’ve also said that continued rule by Hamas is unacceptable after the Oct. 7 attack in which the group killed 1,400 Israelis and took more than 200 people hostage. There’s also little evidence that the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, would be willing or able to take over Gaza. Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by the US and the European Union.

Ophir Falk, a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said, “A number of options have been raised for the day after Hamas. The prerequisite for all of them is that Hamas be destroyed. Once Hamas is destroyed, all the options discussed are based on the premise that Gaza be demilitarized.”

All options hold political peril for President Joe Biden and for other nations, including Gulf States, not to mention Israel. Biden believes that putting even a small contingent of American troops in harm’s way could prove politically risky, according to a person familiar with his thinking, who added that the US isn’t close to making such a decision. It’s also not yet clear whether Arab states might be interested in participating, another person said.

Ultimately, Biden and other US officials say that an endpoint that involves a sovereign Palestinian state is necessary, but exactly how to reach that outcome has barely featured in discussions, either public or private. And Israel says its military operation could last months, and will result in a buffer zone around Gaza.

According to the people familiar with the matter, one option would grant temporary oversight to Gaza to countries from the region, backed by troops from the US, UK, Germany and France. Ideally, it would also include representation from Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, the people said.

A second option is a peacekeeping force modeled on the Multinational Force and Observers group that operates on and around the Sinai peninsula, enforcing the terms of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Israel believes that this idea is worthy of consideration, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A third option would be temporary governance of the strip under a United Nations umbrella. This would have the advantage of the legitimacy bestowed by the UN, but Israel views it as impractical, according to a person familiar with Israel’s thinking, who added that Israel believes that little good has come from the world body.

Earlier this month, Israeli Minister Benny Gantz labeled UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres a “terror apologist” after Guterres argued that the Oct. 7 attacks “did not happen in a vacuum.”

Several former officials and outside groups have already begun discussions with the US and Israel, and floated possible plans. One came from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which called for a Palestinian-run interim administration, with the UN Relief and Works Agency continuing to provide food, heath and education.”

[a-modernmajorgeneral]

At the 1937 International Exposition in Paris, two colossal pavilions faced each other down. One was Hitler’s Germany, crowned with a Nazi eagle. The other was Stalin’s Soviet Union, crowned with a statue of a worker and a peasant holding hands. It was a symbolic clash at a moment when right and left were fighting to the death in Spain. But somewhere inside the Soviet pavilion, among all the socialist realism, were drawings of fabulous beasts and flowers filled with a raw folkloric magic. They subverted the age of the dictators with nothing less than a triumph of the human imagination over terror and mass death.

These sublime creations were the work of a Ukrainian artist, Maria Prymachenko, who has once again become a symbol of survival in the midst of a dictator’s war. Prymachenko, who died in 1997, is the best-loved artist of the besieged country, a national symbol whose work has appeared on its postage stamps, and her likeness on its money. Ukrainian astronomer Klim Churyumov even named a planet after her.

When the Museum of Local History in Ivankiv caught fire under Russian bombardment, a Ukrainian man risked his life to rescue 25 works by her. But Prymachenko’s entire life’s work is now under much greater threat. As Kyiv endures heavy attacks, 650 paintings and drawings by the artist held in the National Folk Decorative Art Museum are at risk, along with everything and everyone in the capital.

‘A murderous intruder in Eden’ … another of Prymachenko’s grotesque creatures. Photograph: Prymachenko Foundation

It’s said that, when some of Prymachenko’s paintings were shown in Paris in 1937, her brilliance was hailed by Picasso, who said: “I bow down before the artistic miracle of this brilliant Ukrainian.” It would make artistic sense. For this young peasant, who never had a lesson in her life, was unleashing monsters and collating fables that chimed with the work of Picasso, and his friends the surrealists. While the dictatorships duked it out architecturally at that International Exhibition, Picasso unveiled Guernica at the Spanish pavilion, using the imagery of the bullfight to capture war’s horrors. Prymachenko, too, dredged up primal myths to tackle the terrifying experiences of Ukrainians.

Her pictures from the 1930s are savage slices of farmyard vitality. In one of them, a beautiful peacock-like bird with yellow body and blue wings perches on the back of a brown, crawling creature and regurgitates food into its mouth. Why is the glorious bird feeding this flightless monster? Is it an act of mercy – or a product of grotesque delusion? In another drawing, an equally colourful bird appears to have its own young in its mouth. Carrying it tenderly, you might think, but only if you know nothing of the history of Ukraine.

At first sight, Prymachenko might seem just colourful, decorative and “naive”, a folkloric artist with a strong sense of pattern. Certainly, her later post-1945 works are brighter, more formal and relaxing. But there is a much darker undertow to her earlier creations. For Prymachenko became an artist in the decade when Stalin set out to destroy Ukraine’s peasants. Rural people starved to death in their millions in the famine he consciously inflicted on Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933.

Had she been an ‘intellectual’, she could have ended up in a gulag or worse …Prymachenko.

Initially, food supplies failed because of the sudden, ruthless attempt to “collectivise” agriculture. Peasants were no longer allowed to farm for themselves but were made to join collectives in a draconian policy that was meant to provide food for a new urban proletariat. Ukraine was, and is, a great grain-growing country but the shock of collectivisation threw agriculture into chaos. The Holodomor, as this terror-famine is now called, is widely seen as genocide: Stalin knew what was happening and yet doubled down, denying relief, having peasants arrested or worse if they begged in cities or sought state aid. In a chilling presage of Putin’s own logic and arguments, this cruelty was driven by the ludicrous notion that the hungry were in fact Ukrainian nationalists trying to undermine Soviet rule.

“It seems reasonable,” writes historian Timothy Snyder in his indispensable book Bloodlands, “to propose a figure of approximately 3.3 million deaths by starvation and hunger-related disease in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933”. These were not pretty deaths and they took place all around Prymachenko in her village of Bolotnya. Some people were driven to cannibalism before they died. The corpses of the starved in turn became food.

Born in 1908, Prymachenko was in her early 20s when she witnessed this vision of hell on Earth – and survived it to become an artist. But the fear did not end when the famine did. Just as her work was sent to Paris in 1937, Stalin’s Great Terror was raging. It is often pictured as a butchery of urban intellectuals and politicians – but it came to the Ukrainian countryside, too.

So it would take a very complacent eye not to see the disturbing side of Prymachenko’s early art. The bird in its parent’s mouth, the peacock feeding a brute. Maybe there is also survivor guilt, and a feeling of alienation from a destroyed habitat, in such images of strange misbegotten creatures lost in a nature they can’t work and don’t comprehend. One of her fantastic beasts appears blind, its toothy mouth open in a sad lamentation, as it stumbles through a garden on four numbed clodhopping feet. A serpent and a many-headed hydra also appear among the flowers, like deceptively beautiful, yet murderous intruders in Eden. In another of these mid-1930s works, a glorious bird rears back in fear as a smaller one perches on its breast, beak open.

There’s nothing decorative or reassuring about the images that got this brave artist noticed. Far from innocently reviving traditional folk art, her lonely or murderous monsters exist in a nature poisoned by violence. Yet she got away with it – and was even officially promoted right in the middle of Stalin’s Terror, when millions were being killed on the merest suspicion of independent thought. Perhaps this was because even paranoid Stalinists didn’t think a peasant woman posed a threat.

Her spirit survives … a rally for peace in San Francisco, recreating a work by Prymachenko called A Dove Has Spread Her Wings and Asks for Peace. Photograph: John G Mabanglo/EPA

Prymachenko remembered that, as a child, she was one day tending animals when she “began to draw real and imaginary flowers with a stick on the sand”. It’s an image that recurs in folk art – this was also how the great medieval painter Giotto started. But it was Prymachenko’s embroidery, a skill passed on by her mother, that first got her noticed and invited to participate in an art workshop in Kyiv. Such origins would inevitably have meant being patronisingly classed by the Soviet system as a peasant artist. An “intellectual” who produced such work could have ended up in the gulag or worse.

Yet, to see the sheer miracle of her achievement, you must also set Prymachenko in her time as well as her place. The Soviet Union in the 1930s was relentlessly crushing imagination as Stalin imposed absolute conformity. The Ukrainian writer Mikhail Bulgakov couldn’t get his surreal fantasies published, even though, in a tyrannical whim, Stalin read them himself and spared the writer’s life. But the apparent rustic naivety of Prymackenko’s work let her create mysterious, insidiously macabre art that had more in common with surrealism than socialist realism.

Then, incredibly, life in Ukraine got worse. Prymachenko had found images to answer famine but she fell silent in the second world war, when Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union made Ukraine one of the first places Jews were murdered en masse. In September 1941, 33,771 Kyiv Jews were shot and their bodies tossed into a ravine outside their city. Prymachenko was working on a collective farm and had no colours to paint.

In the 1960s, she was the subject of a liberating revival, her folk designs helping to seed a new Ukrainian consciousness. There’s an almost hippy quality to her 60s art. You can see how it appealed to a younger audience, keen to reconnect with their Ukrainian identity.

The country has other artists to be proud of, not least Kazimir Malevich, a titan of the avant garde famous for Black Square, the first time a painting wasn’t a painting of something. Yet you can see why Prymachenko is so loved. Her art, with its rustic roots, expresses the hope and pride of a nation. But the past she evokes is no innocent age of happy rural harmony. What she would make of Putin’s terror one can only guess and fear.

[moriskillart]

A little bit of a problem with the translation. I'm translating my fanfic into Ukrainian, and there are difficulties with the names. Reaver also translates as robber or outlaw, and we have a good national meme...

Being in fandoms where it's just me and a cup of tea has become a tradition for me. I have ao3, there will be Fable fanfics. Welcome, who can. I feel very lonely in this fandom alone 🤣

[tibidoxs]

Chapter 3. The Mysterious Double Bass & Widdle Whistles the Wabbit

Widdle Whistles the Wabbit

Uncle German’s rabbit fursona is called Syusyukalka (Сюсюкалка), from the verb syusyukat’ (сюсюкать) meaning either “to speak baby talk” or “to speak with a strident or whistling lisp.”

“Oh, GP! Oh, my darling GP!”

In Russia, Harry Potter is known as Garri Potter (Гарри Поттер). In a later book, Pipa’s darling GP is revealed to be Gury Pupper (Гурий Пуппер), a parody of Harry Potter with a copyright symbol on his forehead instead of a lightning bolt.

Goga Pupsikov? Gunya Peretz? . . . Grisha Ponchikov?

Pupsik (пупсик) means “baby doll,” peretz (перец) means “pepper,” and ponchik (пончик) means “donut.”

Russkoye Bistro (Русское бистро)

Established in 1995 by the Moscow City Council as an inexpensive alternative to McDonald’s. The fast food chain offered traditional Russian cuisine (Russkoye means “Russian”), but despite being far more affordable than the competition, it never really took off. The addition of alcoholic beverages to the menu in the early 2000s didn’t help the brand’s reputation, and today most if not all locations have closed.

“Drink, don't gurgle; otherwise your tail will fall off!”

Possibly a reference to a line from the 1974 children’s novella Uncle Fedya, His Dog, and His Cat by Eduard Uspensky: “Sometimes my paws ache, sometimes my tail falls off.” The book was adapted in 1978 as Three from Prostokvashino (also known as Three from Buttermilk Village) by the same animation studio that produced Junior and Karlsson, an adaptation of the Astrid Lindgren classic Karlsson-on-the-Roof, which Dmitrii Emets has cited as one of his favorite books.

Koshmars breduns eks (Кошмарс бредунс экс)

Koshmar (кошмар) means “nightmare.” Bred (бред) means “ravings.”

A small birch bark manuscript

Prior to the mass production of paper, birch bark was widely used for documents in Russia and other parts of Asia and Europe.

Cain Froggeman and Yehuda Todestoleson (Каин Жабман и Иегуда Мухоморенко)

Zhabman and Mukhomorenko in the original. Zhaba (жаба) means “frog,” mukhomor (мухомор) means “toadstool.” The suffix “-enko” (-енко) is used in Ukrainian patroynmic surnames and translates as “son of.” Cain and Yehuda are both names from the Old Testament. Their publishing house (Tower Press, Babylon) is a reference to the fabled Tower of Babel.

[alightineverydarkness]

Unfinished piece for Wire Magazine

From a late night train through the heart of Ukraine all you can see is dark, empty fields. Often on trips like this I’ve imagined myself instead standing there, way off in the middle of the field, a tiny shadow watching my own train pass. What’s more, I’ve considered possible ways to get there: I could, say, have someone drive me along the train tracks from the nearest town, so that I could watch a train specifically from Kyiv, one I would’ve actually been on; or I could get off on the next stop after a particularly forlorn-looking landscape and wander back, to wait for another train to come. Right now, I am in a crowded car, I am still watching the fields, but any such plan would be severely punishable: I have joined the Ukrainian army, and a soldier watching his train from a field is deserting. So long, a fantasy.

My name is Timur, I make music as John Object, and I am not this. A uniform, a rifle, how did it this happen? I remember shows. I remember smiles. I know what a kiss feels like. I am currently in love.

I have always secretly hoped that my life as a young underground musician would be different from everyone else’s: perhaps, a nod from Aphex Twin in a DJ set, or a credit on Yeezus 2, or a rush of meme fame; and what’s worse, I always secretly felt my music deserved it. Instead, my career is taking off after the bombing of Kharkiv, the blockade of Mariupol, the murder of thousands of civilians and soldiers, and it’s not about music at all. While I am a Ukrainian, and this is our time in the spotlight, I am now a soldier, not a musician.

Now I am somewhere else, standing at the edge of a field, under a tree. It is 2am, and we have just received an air raid warning. I hear a distant siren somewhere in the nearest village hold a constant dissonant tone. Around me, for as far into the dark as I can make out, all I see is cigarette ends glowing. One of the orange lights moves a bit, and a hoarse voice says that actually, the siren’s been on all day, we just didn’t notice. We will stay out here for another half hour, until we receive an all-clear.

Back then I recall standing outside a warehouse in south Kyiv, and it was 2am too. A dissonant tone was underscored by a constant kick drum, and the smokers around me were in a better mood. Again, I had half an hour to kill, until I were to go inside and do my thing – I am playing at Cxema, the fabled Kyiv rave, the biggest in Eastern Europe. For some reason, they used to always give me the prime time spot.

I think my life broke in two the night after they bombed the Holocaust memorial in Kyiv. I laid on an army bunk and cried silently, tears of rage boiling, running down the sides of my head into my hair. This life is new. I don’t recognise it.

shit

[cyberbenb]

Ukraine’s counteroffensive lurches forward: Key moment looms as more forces committed

Fresh videos of Western-made armor rolling across open fields, a new settlement liberated, and a lot of noise on Russian military blogger Telegram channels heralded to the world on July 28 that the Ukrainian summer counteroffensive had upped its gear.

Almost eight weeks into the long-awaited operation that began on June 5 with limited gains and a fair share of disappointment, the counteroffensive has entered a new phase, as new brigades have been seen committed to the fight.

Notice of the new push came first on July 26, when the New York Times reported that Ukraine was committing much of its reserves to a large-scale attack on the sector of the front line south of Orikhiv in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, where Russian defensive lines are at their thickest.

The next day, coming quickly in the footsteps of Russian bloggers’ reports of losing the settlement, Ukraine announced the liberation of the village of Staromaiorske, the fifth in a string of liberated villages along the Mokri Yaly River in western Donetsk Oblast, about 75 kilometers east of the battles near Orikhiv.

The past days attacks have come after the end of a protracted period of more attritional fighting without major territorial gains in the south.

And while the world media were pondering on whether or not the counteroffensive had already failed in its objectives, Ukraine’s armed forces changed their tactics to a more systematic, attrition-focused approach.

Now, with evidence that the Ukrainian command has committed or is in the process of committing the majority of its reserve units to the battle, the next week’s fighting poses to be crucial for the counteroffensive.

Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian forces liberate Staromaiorske village in southeast, reportedly ramp up counteroffensive

Key developments on July 27: * Ukrainian forces advance south of Bakhmut, and reportedly ramp up counteroffensive southeast * In southeast, Staromaiorske village is liberated * Ukraine’s parliament extends martial law, mobilization * Russia strikes Kharkiv Oblast, killing 1, injuring 4 Ukr…

The Kyiv IndependentAlexander Khrebet

Three-pronged attack

As has been the case since Ukrainian forces first marched forward toward Russian lines in early June, the counteroffensive has been focused on three key axes of the front line.

South of Orikhiv, now tipped to be the location of the main effort, Ukrainian forces have pushed several kilometers southeast of the village of Robotyne, which lies on the shortest route to the strategic city of Tokmak.

In several videos circulated on social media, Ukrainian vehicles are seen to reach the first set of Russia’s fabled “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles, just one part of the combined landscape of Russian fortified defenses, also known as the “Surovikin Line” after the former commander of Russia’s war against Ukraine, in the area.

While Ukrainian forces seem to have reached this first line, there has been no visual confirmation so far of whether they have been able to hold the new ground that they have covered.

As is often the case, individual videos can nonetheless paint a misleading picture of the reality on the front line. In one such case, Russian sources posted footage of destroyed Ukrainian BMP infantry fighting vehicles, also geolocated nearby, to show Ukraine’s apparent failure to advance further.

“You hear the anecdotes from Russian Telegram channels,” said Rob Lee, military expert and Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, to the Kyiv Independent. “Sometimes it’s very positive, sometimes it’s very negative, it’s impossible to tell if this anecdote is representative of the whole or not.”

An air cannon is fired as Ukrainian artillery division supports soldiers in a counteroffensive on the Zaporizhzhia frontline with M777 in Zaporizhzhia Oblast on July 16, 2023. (Gian Marco Benedetto/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

On the Velyka Novosilka axis further east, the liberation of Staromaiorske by Ukraine’s 35th Marine Brigade was met with a worried reaction from Russian pro-war military bloggers.

Russian forces defending the village were “significantly exhausted by the work of enemy artillery, which continued through the settlement over the past few days,” wrote Semen Pegov, better known as WarGonzo, who noted that the defense of the neighboring village of Urozhaine was now outflanked.

Still, the settlement remains over 10 kilometers from the main Russian defensive line in the sector, which guards the long, open roads to the occupied cities of Mariupol and Berdiansk on the Azov Sea.

Meanwhile, in the east, the ongoing Battle of Bakhmut continues to flow in Ukraine’s favor, as Russian trenches on the flanks of the ruined city are recaptured one by one by hardened Ukrainian brigades, most of which have been fighting in the area at least since winter.

South of Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces led by the Third Assault Brigade, renowned as one of the country’s most professional and effective, are closing in on the capture of the key settlement of Klishchiivka, which Russia occupied in January as it approached its near-encirclement of Bakhmut.

Progress, albeit slower, is also being made north of the city, with Ukrainian forces inching towards the villages of Berkhivka and Yahidne, whilst also slicing away at a substantial Russian salient around Dubovo-Vasylivka.

The attacks around Bakhmut are nonetheless best described as a fixing action, to divert Russian resources away from where the fight carries a lot more strategic weight: in the south.

Where does Russia expect Ukraine’s counterattack? Overview of defensive lines

As Ukraine gathers forces for the counteroffensive, Russia continues to build defensive lines on a massive scale. The lines are especially formidable in the southwestern part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, where many observers expect the main Ukrainian assault to strike. But defenses have been prepared a…

The Kyiv IndependentIgor Kossov

Switch to attrition

After the initial gains and restless attention that characterized the first few days of the counteroffensive, Ukraine’s progress, especially on the southern front line, had slowed almost to a halt over late June and July.

Here, both for Ukrainian and Western officials who were frank about the counteroffensive going slower than expected, and for observers across the world, expectations came up against a sobering reality as the scale and difficulty of the task became clear.

Evaluating the reasons for the initial disappointment is difficult, with blurred lines between a lack of resources, as Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi has stressed, potential strategic mistakes by the Ukrainian command, and the unforeseeable challenges of this new fight.

Predictably, the main obstacle for a rapid armored advance has first and foremost been the vast, dense minefields placed by Russia in front of their main defenses along the southern front line.

To make progress, Ukraine is using a combination of mine-clearing line chargers and breaching vehicles, although these are both in short supply, and often an easy target for Russian artillery and anti-tank fire, as seen by the loss of donated Leopard 2R breaching vehicles in early June. Failing that, this dangerous job is often done by hand by Ukrainian combat engineers, but even then, Russia is able to replenish its minefields with the use of remote deployment systems.

Here, U.S.-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles have greatly improved the survivability of Ukrainian infantry in the fight, but that alone is not enough to actually break through.

Russian dominance in the air above the battlefield has also played a role, with the U.K. defense ministry noting a significant uptick in the use of Ka-52 attack helicopters to strike exposed groupings of Ukrainian armor and personnel in the southern fields.

“In my view it’s not because Ukraine is making a lot of mistakes, it’s mainly because Russia is defending in a competent way and they’ve got very strong defenses,” said Lee.

“Even if you had a perfect unit executing this plan, they were going to take attrition, it was going to be difficult, there is no easy way to do this.”

Still, one telling factor has been that most of the successful gains made so far, around Velyka Novosilka and Bakhmut, have been achieved by Ukraine’s more experienced brigades, which have held their respective sectors for many months without rest. Meanwhile, some of the newer brigades committed from the reserves, such as the 47th Mechanized, have been documented to have faced serious challenges and internal scandals in their first outing on the battlefield.

A howitzer is fired as Ukrainian artillery division supports soldiers in a counteroffensive on the Zaporizhzhia frontline with M777 in Zaporizhzhia Oblast on July 16, 2023. (Gian Marco Benedetto/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

After the initial flurry of action on the southern front line, a marked shift in Ukraine’s tactics could be observed.

Ukraine continued to assault Russian lines, but did so mostly with dismounted infantry, systematically advancing under the cover of artillery fire.

Meanwhile, videos released by Ukrainian units showed an uptick in counter-battery attacks targeting Russian artillery, in particular with GMLRS rounds from the HIMARS and M270 systems, as well as with cheap but precise FPV (first-person view) kamikaze drones, which are playing an increasing role in the war on both sides.

This picture is backed by the data on Russian losses published by the Ukrainian General Staff, in which Russia is regularly reported to have lost several dozen artillery pieces in a day, compared to earlier in the year when the daily figures were mostly in the single digits.  

These trends, combined with Washington’s supply of a large tranche of DPICMS cluster shells, means that in the artillery war, Ukraine looks to be enjoying an unfamiliar advantage.

“During the attritional phases, Russia was clearly taking losses and Ukraine was clearly having success destroying Russian artillery and other pieces of equipment,” said Lee, “but the question is whether that was enough to set the conditions for a breakthrough now.”

How controversial cluster munitions give Ukraine needed punch during counteroffensive

Ukraine has begun using American cluster munitions in the field and is doing so effectively, according to the White House. “They are using them appropriately,” National Security Spokesman John Kirby said on July 21. “They’re using them effectively, and they are actually having an impact on Russia’s…

The Kyiv IndependentIgor Kossov

Commitment

While Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and some Western commentators claimed very early on that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, the objective truth was that it was impossible to tell until Ukraine committed the bulk of its reserves, which consist of around a dozen brigades, many of which NATO-trained and equipped, complemented by the nine light assault brigades of the “Offensive Guard,” formed under the interior ministry.

Looking at the brigades now entering the fight, the renewed attacks this week are a sign that Ukraine is taking the plunge and committing more units, particularly from its 10th Army Corps, though it remains hard to tell if this represents the bulk of Kyiv’s reserves.

“The initial plan was that they wanted 9th Corps (the grouping of brigades sent earlier into the fight) to either get to the main defensive line or breach it themselves, and then get 10th Corps to come in and exploit the breach,” said Lee. “10th Corps seems now to have been committed before that.”

A Ukrainian soldier of the 35th Marine Brigade next to a destroyed Russian tank in the counteroffensive in the direction of Velyka Novosilka, Donetsk Oblast, July 13, 2023. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

According to Lee, the choice to push forward now could have both positive and negative explanations.

“If it’s a positive signal, maybe they’ve seen a weakness develop because of attrition on the Russian side and now they think they can exploit it,” he said.

“On the other side it might be for negative reasons, if they see that 9th Corps is taking too many losses, they are running through too much artillery ammunition, and there is a concern that they want to have enough ammunition available for the second echelon push. It could be either one of those, but it might be a combination of the two.”

The results of the next days and weeks of fighting depend much on the attrition rates suffered by both sides, on which there is very little verifiable information. Even then, Lee said, this new commitment of Ukrainian units does not represent an all-or-nothing gambit.

“It’s not fully clear now how many reserves Ukraine still has remaining,” he added.

“I don’t think the counteroffensive is going to end in the near future, I think we will see Ukraine eventually going back to that attritional approach with infantry assaults, going into August or maybe September.”

As more soldiers go missing, desperate families left in limbo

Sixteen months have passed since Halyna Nikiforova’s husband went missing on Ukraine’s eastern front line. But the 40-year-old Sloviansk native still texts him daily stories about their children. “They were everything to him,” Nikiforova said of their 13 and 15-year-old sons. “They…

The Kyiv IndependentAsami Terajima

The long game

At the time of publication, it remains too early to make conclusions on the success of the renewed Ukrainian counteroffensive pushes.

In the medium term, whether or not major gains are made in this new armored advance, Ukraine’s capacity to continue to attack on the ground and expend ammunition at this rate has a limit, reaching which will signal the culmination of the offensive.

It remains unclear what gains Ukraine can make before this time comes, but Kyiv’s goals have likely been adjusted since the counteroffensive began in June, says Lee.

“I think Tokmak is the primary goal right now, Melitopol was likely the more ambitious goal of the Orikhiv axis at first, but it comes down to the Russian side,” he said.

“If Russia has enough reserves to commit, it will be tough for Ukraine to keep advancing, but if Russia has to commit reserves in different places and the other units they have available are weakened or hollowed out, then Ukraine might be able to keep going.”

Feet of the dead body of a Russian trooper seen in the village of Storozheve, Donetsk Oblast, on July 6, 2023. (Alex Chan Tsz Yuk/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Beyond the point of culmination, the picture of how the war will trend in the long term is murky.

Before the counteroffensive was launched, much discussion in the west circled around whether this summer was Ukraine’s last chance to conduct such an operation, given Ukraine’s heavy reliance on Western military aid.

“The window of opportunity is open this year. After next winter, it will be extremely difficult to maintain the current level of assistance,” said Czech President Petr Pavel, a retired general who is known for his strong pro-Ukrainian stance, in March.

The most likely scenario, according to Lee, is a sustained attritional fight, the results of which likely to be a numbers game between Russian industrial power and the ability of the West to match it with sustained deliveries of ammunition and other equipment.

“Again, it comes down to Russia,” he said. “If Russia continues to mobilize, continues to produce artillery ammunition, this might be one of the best chances Ukraine gets.”

Note from the author:

Hi, this is Francis Farrell, cheers for reading this article. I grew up on the other side of the world, but in Ukraine I have found a home unlike any other. Just like with so many of our readers, I understand that you don’t have to be from near here to realize how important Ukraine’s struggle is for freedom and human rights all over the world. The Kyiv Independent’s mission is to lead the way in continuing to bring the best homegrown, English-language coverage of this war, even if the rest of the world’s attention starts to fade. Please consider supporting our reporting.

[whatilistenedtoatwork]

From July 10th to July 14th, 2023

10-07-23

GUNS N’ ROSES “Live In Las Vegas, Thomas & Mack Center, January 2th 1992”; THE DECEMBERISTS Her Majesty”; THE SPECIALS “More Specials”; THE JAM “All Mod Cons”; NEW ORDER “Low-Life”; KURTIS BLOW “Ego Trip”

11-07-23

THE UKRAINIANS “Ворони/Vorony”; THE TEMPTATIONS “Puzzle People”; WIRE “Chairs Missing”; MUDDY WATERS “The Real Folk Blues”; GUNS N’ ROSES “Use Your Illusion II”; JILL JONES “Jill Jones”; AL GREEN “Back Up Train”; RANCID “…And Out Come The Wolves”; PRHYME “PRhyme (Deluxe Version)”; FAT BOYS “Fat Boys Are Back”; WILLIE NELSON “The Sound In Your Mind”; THE DUKES OF STRATOSPHEAR “25 O’Clock”; DIANA ROSS & THE SUPREMES AND THE TEMPTATIONS “Together”; OTIS REDDING “Complete & Unbelievable:  The Otis Redding Dictionary Of Soul”

12-07-23

RUN THE JEWELS “Run The Jewels 3”; KATE RUSBY “Little Lights”; LITTLE WALTER “The Best Of Little Walter”; ISAAC HAYES “Shaft”; SAM & DAVE “Double Dynamite”; THE FALL “Dragnet”; BLACK SABBATH “Vol. 4”

13-07-23

THE JAM “Setting Sons”; SAM COOKE “Cooke’s Tour”; GREGORY ISAACS “Extra Classic”; THE HANDSOME FAMILY “Through The Trees”; WIRE “154”; CULTURE “Baldhead Bridge”; THE TEMPTATIONS “The Temptations In A Mellow Mood”; SMOKEY ROBINSON & THE MIRACLES “Make It Happen”; ISAAC HAYES “Black Moses”; THE DECEMBERISTS “Picaresque”; THERAPY? “Troublegum”; R.E.M. “Fables Of The Reconstruction”; JACKIE OATES “Hyperboreans”

 14-07-23

THE PRODIGY “Music For The Jilted Generation”; DINOSAUR JR. “Beyond”; SUPERGRASS “In It For The Money”; JOHN LEE HOOKER “The Folk Lore Of John Lee Hooker”; SUPER FURRY ANIMALS “Radiator”; U-ROY “With Words Of Wisdom”; BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS “Edutainment”; RUSH ”2112”

[kragnir]

Not sure why the cockroaches are so worked-up about, if those drones are truly American. It’s no secret that we’re providing weapons and ammo to Ukraine. But, we see that they are quick with lies, concerning the cause of the damages, which were supposedly from a grocery store fire. 

[myjennieblr]

Tales from the Trenches

Was working with my low level English Language Learners today. These are kids who arrived with almost no English. It’s nice to see their English progressing. I had translated a simplified-language version of The Bear and the Bees fable into the four different languages they speak (Chinese, Ukrainian, Spanish, and Farsi) and the Ukrainian girl was having a great time explaining to me how Google Translate had fucked up the translation for one of the sentences. :-)

[mariacallous]

It was a long time coming. Sure, U.S. President Joe Biden was among the Western leaders of the G7 when they convened at a German castle called Schloss Elmau in June 2022, and President Donald Trump growled his way through a gathering of the larger G20 in Hamburg in July 2017.

But not since November 2016, when President Barack Obama embarked on a farewell tour of Europe and had dinner with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, had a U.S. president made a bilateral visit to Germany.

For sure, the COVID-19 pandemic got in the way. American leaders don’t seem to travel as much as they used to. Yet, excuses aside, it was curious that Biden’s lightning visit to Berlin last week was both his first and last as the “leader of the free world” (a term that some Germans still cling to). Even that trip was fraught, having been postponed by a week as Biden attended to the aftermath of Hurricane Milton in Florida.

The trip was supposed to be somewhat longer, but the grandeur was retained—a military welcome by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, at his Schloss Bellevue residence, followed by the conferring of the country’s highest honor. Then came the work in earnest: political talks with Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

All of them were supposed to convene with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base to discuss his “victory plan” to win the war against Russia, as part of a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. When Biden postponed his visit, the meeting was rescheduled, too. But desperate for political progress and for more weapons deliveries ahead of a long winter of combat, Zelensky still went to Germany on a trip that also included visits to London, Paris, and Rome—and left seemingly empty-handed.

Macron and Starmer synchronized their trips with Biden’s, but for all the rhetoric of steely determination, developments on the Ukraine front are seemingly scant. Although he wasn’t mentioned by name, all eyes were on Trump with just under three weeks from the U.S. presidential election.

Ukraine is the issue around which future U.S.-European relations will hinge, irrespective of whether Trump or Kamala Harris prevail. As Norbert Röttgen, a member of the Bundestag, said in a TV interview, “If Russia wins, the West as we know it will cease to exist.” His party, the opposition center-right Christian Democratic Union, has adopted a policy of sending Ukraine long-range Taurus missiles if Russia continues to attack key infrastructure. That is a position the ever-cautious Scholz has refused to take.

The second curiosity of the Biden-Scholz relationship is that both leaders have given far and away the most amount of help to Ukraine, and yet both are accused (with some justification) of dragging their feet, of handing Zelensky just enough so as not to lose the war but not enough to drive Russian forces out of occupied land.

Despite Biden’s previous absence from Germany, he and Scholz have become close, as both were keen to demonstrate. Biden described Germany as “the closest and most important of allies” (words that wouldn’t have delighted Brits still wedded to their notion of the “special relationship”). He praised Scholz, a leader who “rose to meet the moment” and thanked him multiple times. On the ropes domestically, his authority draining away, Scholz smiled a wide smile.

Their relationship didn’t start that way. When the newly elected chancellor arrived at the White House in February 2022, he was told in public by Biden and in private by intelligence chiefs that Russian President Vladimir Putin was about to invade Ukraine. Scholz and his own security apparatus had taken a more credulous view of the Kremlin leader, only to be forced to row back incredibly quickly a few weeks later.

His fabled Zeitenwende speech, which signaled a new harder approach on Russia, also marked a turning point. Scholz and Biden have largely been in lockstep since, both in their courage and their hesitation in regards to both Ukraine and Israel. The most important area of divergence remains China, where Germany’s trade dependency continues to guide a political relationship that is far more benign.

As Biden said his goodbyes, attention now turns to Trump. Indeed, they have been for a long time, even before Biden was persuaded by his own party not to seek reelection and a Trump victory was as good as baked into Berlin’s thinking.

All precedent suggests that if Trump does win, Germany and Europe are in for a desperately rocky ride.

It’s worth briefly dwelling on the past. Over that fateful farewell dinner in Berlin eight years ago, Obama pleaded with Merkel to stay on as chancellor. She had already served three terms and was keen to hand over the mantle. According to aides, Obama pointed out that with Trump about to succeed him in the White House and with the United Kingdom in the throes of chaos after its Brexit vote, Europe needed stability and a wise hand on the tiller.

It had taken Merkel some time to warm to Obama and vice versa. She had found his easy charisma a little alienating. Matters were made worse when Merkel found out through research by Der Spiegel on the Snowden files that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) had been bugging her mobile phone for since 2002. The fact that she was just one of 122 world leaders in the surveillance database system known as Nymrod didn’t lessen the fury. Germany was supposed to be one of the United States’ staunchest allies. In an angry phone exchange with Obama, deliberately shared later with Der Spiegel, she said, “This is like the Stasi.” From that low point, relations improved rapidly, but tensions remained, not least of which was due to Germany’s reluctance to meet the agreed NATO target of at least 2% GDP spending on defense.

From the outset, Trump loathed Merkel. During his first election campaign, he routinely insulted her. “They picked person who is ruining Germany,” he said after Time chose Merkel as its Person of the Year in 2015. What particularly upset him was the magazine calling her “chancellor of the free world.”

In March 2017, Merkel flew to Washington, D.C., for her first meeting with Trump. She prepped assiduously, according to the New Yorker. She studied a 1990 Playboy interview that had become a set text on Trumpism—or the nearest thing anybody could find—for policymakers. She read his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal. She even watched episodes of his TV show, The Apprentice. The meeting started badly. She offered him a handshake in the Oval Office in front of the cameras. He didn’t take it.

Trump’s manner was not designed to endear. But that didn’t mean that all his criticisms were invalid. His misgivings about Russia and the Nord Stream gas pipeline were legitimate. His concerns about China and Germany’s trade dependency were equally legitimate. He wasn’t the only one to criticize defense spending—from George Bush to Obama and even now, this has been the standard view in Washington.

About 18 months into Trump’s presidency, Merkel concluded that it would be impossible to develop any kind of meaningful relationship with him. The best she could hope for was to manage the problem. Trump dispatched a longtime hawk and Fox News shock-jock commentator Richard Grenell to Berlin as U.S. ambassador. Grenell went immediately on a warpath, denouncing Germany on a regular basis and vowing to “empower conservatives” across Europe. Grenell is now being touted as possible national security advisor if Trump wins, an appointment that would be seen as a direct act of confrontation.

If Harris were to win, relations would remain on a more even level, but the difficulties would not be dispelled. The United States wants Europe to be more self-sufficient in its defense and tougher on China. Germany has a long way to go toward achieving those ends. Moreover, Washington is already looking to a future beyond not just Biden but also Scholz.

[scarlet--holmes]

For the Aph ambassador, what kind of fairytales and folktales do Ukraine have? And what are some of the most beautiful poems there?

Thank you for the question! Ukrainian folktales are indeed interesting. They can tell a lot about life of Ukrainian people in different periods of time and traits that were appreciated or criticized by them. 

One folktale that I clearly remember from my childhood is Лисиця та Журавель (The Fox and The Crane). The story begins when the Fox invited the Crane to have dinner with her. Since they are different types of animals, they use differnet types of dishes. The Fox thought it would be entertaining to make fun of the Crane and give him the dishes that she used (they were flat and uncomfortable for him to eat from). The Crane was very upset and disappointed, so he decided to pul the same prank on the Fox as a revenge. She didn’t see that coming! The Fox was really angry and ended her  friendship with the Crane immediately. The moral of the story is that one should never make fun of problems that other people have (otherwise one will end up lonely). You can read a translation of this story here (it is more detailed there). 

(Source: x )

Another common Ukrainian tale is Рукавичка (The Mitten). Long story short: an old hunter lost his mitten. A Mouse found it and decided to live there. A bunch of other animals joined her (such as a Frog, a Hare, a Fox, a Wolf and a Boar). When the Bear got into the mittem it ripped, so the animals had no place to live in. There is a Russian saying “Бесплатный сыр бывает только в мышеловке” (There is always free cheese in a mousetrap/There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch) which explains the whole point of the story. Here is the best translation of the folktale so far. It is quite different from the one in the post, but the main point of the story is pretty much the same. Thanks @darkumbreon9 for finding this version!  

(Source: x )

One of the most popular folktales is Колобок (The Little Round Bun). Once upon a time an old couple had nothing to eat. They decided to bake a bun. However the Bun was alive. It escaped and met various animals on his way, all of which threatened to eat him. But no one actually ate him, because he sang a lovely song and ran away. The last animal he met was a Fox. She was sly enough to fool him (by telling that she was deat and couldn’t hear the song, so she askes him to sit on the top of her nose). At the end of the story she ate the poor Bun. The story teahces us that we should not be trust creepy people as the Little Bun did. You can read the translation here . 

(Source: x )

There are also a lot of other interesting Ukrainian folktales, such as: Коза Дереза (Nibbly-Quibbly the Goat), Лисичка-сестричка та Вовчик-братик (Sister Fox and Brother Wolf), Царівна Жаба (The Frog Princess) Івасик-Телесик (Ivasyk-Telesyk) and many others. We share a lot of folktales with people from Russia and Belarus, because of our Slavic origin. 

And now fairytales! Some of the authors, that wrote fairytales are Леся Українка (Lesya Ukrainka),  Іван Франко (Ivan Franko), Борис Грінченко (Borys Hrinchenko) and a lot of others. They also made translations of foreign ones. Fairytales written by French, German, Brittish, Italian and Russian authors are also well-known here in Ukraine. 

It would be a shame to talk about fairytales and not to mention байки (fables). Their task is to criticize bad behaviour in order to teach people some important lessons. Григорій Сковорода (Hryhoriy Skovoroda) changed the way fables are treated in Ukrainian literature. One of the most significant fables written by him is Бджола та Шершень (The Bee and the Hornet). The Hornet told the Bee that it was stupid because it was still working, even though that work was dangerous for the bees and they had no profit at all. And the Bee said that it enjoyed the work and that is the only thing that matters. As a moral of the fable I want to cite a famous Chinese philosopher Confucius: 

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”.

One should enjoy their job and do not listen to other people that judge them because of that. 

That is all for today’s post! I will talk about poetry in a different post next time, because I didn’t want to make this post too long. I hope the information was helpful and the tales interesting! 

[crow-ra]

Them designs ✨✨✨

[postpunkindustrial]

Sonic Youth - Live In Kyiv, Ukraine 1989

Sonic Youth release live recording from Kyiv, Ukraine April 14, 1989 to benefit World Central Kitchen and relief to Ukraine.

Riding on the wave of the critical success of Daydream Nation, Sonic Youth's first foray into the former USSR came in April of 1989 with shows in Vilnius, Leningrad, Moscow and Kyiv, the first opportunity for Lithuanians, Russians, and Ukrainians respectively to get a realtime gander at the fabled NYC underground in the flesh (with Bon Jovi lagging four months behind to rep NJ for the hordes). Anarchic, locked, and loaded with fresh jams from Daydream and vintage chestnut "Brother James", SY blister here into a rabid pack of ready-for-action Ukrainians only blessed previously with the likes of Nick Cave and Neubauten drifting into their territory. Though the post-Iron Curtain sojourn was cut short prematurely (like this recording!) after this gig, the Sonics left an indelible impression of the true sounds of freedom with attendees that included Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hutz who was forever changed in its wake. This revisiting of the April 14 set honors that nation's spirit and proceeds will benefit World Central Kitchen wck.org , and timestamps a moment where new ears got transported for a first time.