Angel of Maydan: Ukrainian Voices in War

By Laima Vincė

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, occupying Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine, and since the full-scale invasion that started February 24, 2022, Ukrainians have shown the world day in and day out that they are ready to die for their freedom, for their country, for democracy--something we in the West have begun to take for granted. The testimonies collected in this book are an expression of the Ukrainian people's wish to live in freedom, dignity, and rule of law. Theirs are the voices that Russia has not yet silenced. This is not a book about policy, strategy, or even politics. This book is an ongoing conversation with everyday people swept up in the war. This book includes the voices of Ukrainians living through the war inside Ukraine, Ukrainians whose homes were bombed, their families murdered, and those who were forced to relocate or chose to relocate, Lithuanians who have founded humanitarian aid organizations to support Ukraine, Ukrainian Americans, Americans, and a Swede, Jonas Ohman, co-founder of Blue/Yellow, a volunteer organization that supplies non-lethal support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. My journal entries on the war are woven into the narrative--not because my reflections carry any special insights, but they are a form of witnessing from the perspective of a regular person watching events unfold. The brutality inflicted on Ukraine in Russia's unprovoked war reveals particular cowardice because this war targets innocent women and children, the elderly, the disabled. By launching cruise missiles, cluster bombs, ballistic missiles, and other deadly weapons of mass destruction targeted at hospitals, maternity wards, schools, daycare centers, playgrounds, universities, residential apartment buildings, museums, and libraries--all obvious civilian targets--Russia has revealed its intent to terrorize Ukrainians into submission. By kidnapping Ukrainian children and indoctrinating them against their own culture, by indiscriminately murdering Ukrainian civilians, Russia continues to commit genocide against the Ukrainian people. By destroying Ukraine's schools, universities, preschools, libraries, museums, and cultural icons, Russia is also waging cultural genocide against Ukraine. They are not only destroying today's Ukraine, but the Ukraine of the future. Perhaps because so much of the brutality of this war targets women, children, the elderly, and the disabled, much of the focus of this book is on the voices and experiences of Ukrainian women. This collection of eyewitness testimonies, interviews, social media posts, statements, poems, diary entries, reflections, and essays, attempts to give voice to the voiceless, to those who remained behind in Ukraine, to those who have no choice to leave because their homes and communities were destroyed, and to those who struggle against all odds to help them. Their words are both testimony and a form of witnessing.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0D5HZQ89V
• ISBN13: 9798326094490
• Release Date: June 2024
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 282 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.7" x 6.0"