2024 must bring victory to Ukraine
The devastating attacks this week so more than ever why Ukraine needs our support
On 14 September this year, the sun was out over Kharkiv. It was a busy day of interviews, starting with a trip to North Saltivka, where we met Konstantin and Natasha, a couple who found love while searching through the bombed out neighbourhood for Natasha’s missing cats, a heated conversation about Katya about the shelling of the local kindergarten, and a moving chat with Natalya, who directed us to her destroyed home, and the basement where they were hiding when the shells hit their apartment block.
We went back to the city, and I remember this so well – Cher was playing on the taxi radio, Turn Back Time, and I was smiling thinking how in 2008 my friend sang it in karaoke. We had lunch at Protagonist – borscht of course – and then, because we had some time to spare before our next meeting, we walked through the city and Freedom Square, stopping for a cold drink at Franuk before heading to Kharkiv Palace Hotel, where we were due to meet the Mayor. I think I was chatting about my Christmas holiday plans, to go to Spain.
Now Franuk and the Palace hotel are destroyed, targeted by Russian shelling yesterday. These are not military targets – this was a hotel where the Mayor would hold press conferences, where journalists and their fixers stayed; a place that still had World Cup memorabilia on its walls and where I managed to get lost coming out of the toilet. These are places where friends drank coffee and ate really delicious looking pastries in the sunshine. Places where people were happy.
28 people were injured in yesterday’s attack, including two children – so far, thankfully, there have been no fatalities. The strikes on Kharkiv followed a mass attack on 29 December, that hit Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and other cities – including a maternity hospital. The death toll is now at least 39 people, with more than 160 people injured.
The attacks came after an interesting article in the New York Times saying that Putin “quietly signals he is open to a cease-fire in Ukraine”. Those words ring hollow when you see photos of children hiding in bath tubs as missiles falls outside, when pregnant women are hiding from bombs that rain down on the hospital where they should be giving birth, where newborns are evacuated to relative safety, when cafes that serve croissants are reduced to rubble and shattered glass. I know what it’s like to hide in a bathroom as Russian missiles land a few miles from where you lie in ugly light, wrapped in a duvet, fear running like a fever in your veins. But luckily for me I could leave the next day.
The UK Government responded to the 29 December assault on Ukraine with a commitment to send more air defences. This is good news. But the good news comes at a time when the world’s attention, finances and commitment seems to be turning away from Ukraine. Even in the UK, there are currently no funding commitments beyond March 2024, and with all political energy no doubt being taken up by election intensity, what happens come April?
In the US, the Republicans are holding Ukraine to ransom by failing to support funding that could save lives and help to secure victory. In the European Union, Orban may have ‘gone for a cup of coffee’ to avoid having to block Ukraine’s accession to the community, but he has shown no qualms at blocking life-saving funding to the country (the rage I feel at Orban – Orban! – and his posturing cannot be measured).
I feel like screaming. This war is not something that right wing and far right ideologues can afford to play politics with. Ukraine is not a pawn for Congress and the European Parliament to play with, it cannot be held ransom to push for anti-migrant funds on the Southern Border or to challenge EU sanctions against states that fail to respect human rights. It needs arms, it needs air defences, it needs aid and it needs support - not just for the sake of Ukraine and its people, but for the region and the world.
When I was in Kharkiv, all the people I spoke to in decision-making positions – the deputy Mayor of Izium, the police chief in Kharkiv, Kharkiv’s mayor – told me that this war is not just about Ukraine’s security, but about the security of the whole of Europe; that if Ukraine does not win this war, then all of Europe will burn. And they are not wrong. An emboldened Putin, a triumphant Putin, a Putin who is not stopped by an international community working together to fight against war crimes, against the targeting and killing of civilians, against torture and barbarism, is a threat to the whole of Europe.
There are still people who talk of compromise, as if 2014 never happened, and was not following by 24 February 2022. But what is compromise, for the torture victims and unjustly imprisoned and kidnapped children and the people living in occupied territories? What compromise do you think would be acceptable, in Mariupol?
I hope that 2024 brings peace to Ukraine and that peace is victory. That happens with international support. And that international support happens when the Republicans and the Orbanites and Red-Brown alliance stop thinking about newborns in bombed out maternity hospitals as pawns in their political gains, and instead sees what defeat in Ukraine really means – for its people, and for all of us.
A note on whataboutery
When I tweeted last night about the attacks on Kharkiv, I was immediately attacked for not caring about the war in Gaza. Suffice to say, if your response to an attack against civilians in one country is to ‘what about’ civilian attacks in another country, I think you are showing something about yourself.
Obligatory book plug
Surreal to think that this time last year, I was looking forward to a 2023 where my book Bodies Under Siege would be published. Now it’s been published, and allow me to say how proud I am of it. This was a hard book to write, not least because I wrote it in lockdowns working two jobs, and spent way too much time on incel websites. I am really proud of what I achieved with the book and I am so grateful to every reader and every person who has got in touch to tell me about what the book meant to them.
Except for the trad wives enthusiasts - I don’t need emails from you telling me how satisfied your wife is.
The EBook is on special! Just £2!
What I loved
I have a few for you today, because this has been a week of some really fantastic reporting.
From today’s Sunday Times, this is a devastating read by Amal Helles, al-Mawasi, and Louise Callaghan which is lyrically and beautifully written, about the utter devastation and horror of the situation in Gaza. The story of 13-year-old Muhammad al-Yaziji urgently needs all of our attention. How can this be happening. The pain of it, the utter despair.
Children eat rotten food, adults hunt cats: famine is coming for Gaza
Speaking of pain and horror, the other side of the conflict comes from an article in the New York Times that investigates the mass rapes on 7 October. The details are nauseating but we must not turn away. It’s by Jeffrey Gentleman, Anat Schwartz, and Adam Sella.
And finally, also from the NYT, is the investigation into the abduction of Ukraine’s children by Russian authorities. Please listen to what these children have to say. By Carlotta Gall, Oleksandr Chubko and Cora Engelbrecht,
What I read
I finished Bleak House which I just loved, I loved loved loved it. What a treat. I read it when I was 19 for a uni module, all I could remember was “Nemo? But Nemo is latin for no man”. Oh Jo! Oh Lady Deadlock. But mostly, Jo!
Anyway, how TF do you follow Bleak House? With Dead Souls by Gogol apparently.
Also reading Close to Home by Michael Magee which is really good, so much literary talent coming out of Northern Ireland right now, with writers deftly and smartly exploring the long-term mental and economic health impact of the Troubles.
And I read Sky Above Kharkiv which are the collected Facebook posts written during the first six months of the full-scale invasion by Serhiy Zhadan, who wrote the below:
“Remember one thing, my friends. This is a war of annihilation. We cannot afford to lose – we must win.”
What I watched
Over Christmas I watched Leave the World Behind which I enjoyed, a good smart apocalyptic thriller with some massive plot holes and a few issues but all in all, a decent watch.
I did not enjoy Murder is Easy, because I didn’t think it really had any narrative tension, although I did like the casting so there you go. And at least there was no incest in this one (see ITV’s adapt!).
Finished The Gilded Age and OMGEEEE I love it, what a frothy lovely well-dressed treat.
I also watched Witness for the Prosecution and re-watched The Big Sleep which I have seen loads of times but I love me some Bogey and Bacall.
And last night I watched Saltburn, and yes, remember what a hot summer 2006 was! I had just graduated and was working as a waitress, watching World Cup games in pubs on Holloway Road, getting wasted at Ashton Court festival… but yes, I digress, I liked it. It was stylish and entertaining and, I thought, lent rather heavily on Wuthering Heights. Rosamund Pike was hilarious. Not sure it *quite* succeeded in making the point it thought it was making but a lot of fun nonetheless and the final scene was CLASS.
And that’s it! Thank you for sticking with my SubStack in 2023, a year of ups and downs for sure. I love writing here and I am glad that more and more of you enjoy reading what I write here.
Have a fabulous New Year and here’s to 2024.
Ciao ciao.