I can’t write anything long because we’re still on the run, with my kids who are right here next to me. So, in brief: Ukraine was not “dragged into” war; it was attacked. Without even a pretext like Hitler’s attack on Poland.
I know other countries have faced their share of foreign intervention, and right now you’re witnessing overt Russian imperialism.
I don’t want to make any flawed historical comparisons, but empires have lost wars against smaller peoples before, and in the end, the Russian imperialist government must now lose.
When you’re being bombed, when you’re thinking of ways to evacuate your kids, you have a different perspective than when you’re sitting cozy in an office somewhere in Arizona. Yes, Noam Chomsky, I’m looking at you, among others. I started as a volunteer translator of “The Responsibility of Intellectuals” into Ukrainian—now I’m aghast at how you mention, in one sentence, the lead up to this invasion: “What happened in 2014, whatever one thinks of it, amounted to a coup with U.S. support that . . . led Russia to annex Crimea, mainly to protect its sole warm water port and naval base,” Chomsky said.
What if the US occupied Baja California?
Before “overthrowing capitalism,” try thinking of ways for us Ukrainians not to be slaughtered, because “any war is bad.”
I beg you to listen to the local voices here on the ground, not some sages sitting at the center of global power.
Please start your analysis with the suffering of millions of people, rather than geopolitical chess moves. Start with the columns of refugees, people with their kids, their elders, and their pets. Start with those kids in cancer hospital in Kyiv who are now in bomb shelters missing their chemotherapy.
Chapeye Artem
Real name — Anton Vodianyi. Ukrainian writer, translator, reporter.
Born on Dec, 2, 1981 in Kolomyia, he graduated from Kolomyia Gymnasium. From ‘98–’01, he studied at the National Academy of the Security Service of Ukraine but dropped his studies during the protest campaign “Ukraine without Kuchma.” From ‘04–’08, Artem studies at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and graduated with a degree in philosophy.
From ‘06–’07, he traveled around the North and South America and, based on these experiences, he wrote the book, The Venture (Авантюра), first published in ‘08. He’s also written Traveling with Mamayota in Search of Ukraine (Подорож із Мамайотою в пошуках України) in 2011, The Red Zone (Червона зона) in 2014, and There Goes the Neighbourhood (Понаїхали) in 2015.
During the war in Donbas, Artem worked as a reporter where he twice was the finalist of the journalistic award “Honor of the Profession.” In 2015, Artem, together with Kateryna Serhatskova, published their collection of journalistic stories from Donbas The Three-Letter War (Війна на три букви). Six stories from this book—three by Chapai and three by Serhatskova—were nominated for the Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism.
Chapai’s stories and reports are also published in English, Polish, Czech, and Slovenian, and he has translated books by Mahatma Gandhi, Edward Said, and Charles Taylor.