On the late afternoon of Tuesday, March 23, 2022, Ukrainian poet Volodymyr Vakulenko was scurrying around his childhood home’s garden, looking for a place to hide his diaries that documented Russia’s occupation of his hometown.
He could sense that it was going to be his last night alive.
The next day two Russian soldiers took him, and for the next few months, his 71-year old mother and 14-year old autistic son (Volodymyr was a single father) looked for him everywhere.
It was only after a Ukrainian counter-offensive freed his town, in September 2022, that his body was found: in the grave #319, in a field of 400 hastily-dug, individually-numbered graves.
Later that month, award-winning Ukrainian novelist and human rights activist, Victoria Amelina, found the diaries buried under a cherry tree in Volodymyr’s garden. She held them up to the camera like a weapon, because they contained the truth (pictured).
Just this past June, Victoria Amelina was dining at RAI Pizza in Kramatorsk with a few fellow writers. A Russian missile hit the pizza parlor and took her life. She left behind a 12-year old son.
The heart aches at the vastness of these tragedies, and the evil that is perpetrated on innocent people as a result of this senseless war. 💔
God bless freedom. 💙💛
Comments