A sign in the Russian city of Volgograd welcoming visitors to Stalingrad, its former name.STRINGER 

WAR IN UKRAINE

Kremlin trying to change Volgograd’s name back to Stalingrad

Vladimir Putin’s party is rehabilitating the image of the former Soviet dictator and comparing the war in Ukraine with the bloody battle of World War II

El Kremlin trata de recuperar el nombre de Stalingrado

Javier G. Cuesta

Moscow, 2 February 2023

Vladimir Putin once confessed to the American filmmaker Oliver Stone that “Stalin was a product of his time.” The Soviet dictator was, in the eyes of the Russian president, a historical figure victim of “excessive demonization.” Now, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities are pressing to rename the city of Volgograd and call it Stalingrad, as it was known until 1961. The president is visiting the city on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of a tide-turning victory in the war against Nazi Germany. The glories of the past, even those attributed to Stalin, have become a very valuable political asset for Putin as he seeks to justify his actions in Ukraine.

A Palestinian man mourns as civil-defense teams and residents search for people trapped under the debris of a demolished building following Israeli air strikes that hit the Al-Shati refugee camp, in Gaza City, Gaza, on October 24, 2023. In early October, Israel declared war on Hamas following the surprise attacks by Hamas militants on October 7 that left 1,200 people dead in Israel and more than 200 taken hostage. In the weeks since, more than 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent hostilities, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, and more than 1 million have been displaced. 

Ali Jadallah / Anadolu / Getty

Top 25 News Photos of 2023

2023 en fotos

• ALAN TAYLOR
 

• DECEMBER 4, 2023
 

As the end of the year approaches, here is a look back at some of the major news events and moments of 2023. Hamas militants launched a surprise attack in southern Israel, followed by thousands of Israeli air strikes in Gaza; a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down over the U.S.; extreme weather events affected people around the world; a devastating earthquake struck parts of Turkey and Syria; and much more. Here, we present the top 25 news photos of 2023. 

Marta Syrko / Interviews

 

Interview | Marta Syrko

Lighting truly is everything in the work of Marta Syrko. The Ukrainian artist, based in the city of Lviv, sculpts unique images with a painterly and cinematic feeling, captivating the viewer. Drawing inspiration from different fields of art, architecture, conceptual and traditional art, Syrko focuses on portraiture and editorial assignments.

 

Iurii (right) helps a comrade drink after being treated for burns near the Zaporizhzhia front after their tank was hit by a Russian missile.LUIS DE VEGA

RUSSIAN WAR IN UKRAINE

Medics on Ukraine’s front line: ‘It could be any one of us in their shoes. Everyone who comes to us is a hero’

EL PAÍS visits the network of medical stations that mark out the Zaporizhzhia front, where hundreds of wounded soldiers are operated on every day

LUIS DE VEGA
Zaporizhzhia

July 31, 2023

As night falls on the Zaporizhzhia front, the roar of the movement of tanks in the dark intensifies in the rear. Their shadows can be glimpsed through the trees while, barely paying attention, several military doctors at a medical outpost are preparing to watch a movie while waiting for a battle in the form of bullets, shrapnel, amputations, and burns. They know that the patients will arrive sooner rather than later. That is why, when the play button is pressed, the glances between them take bets on the minute of the film when their next wounded comrade will arrive.

 

“This is my luxury apartment,” jokes Andrei, a 22-year-old member of the 35th Marine Brigade, as he shows EL PAÍS the hole that he uses to protect himself from shelling. Photo by Luis de Vega

RUSSIAN WAR IN UKRAINE

As Ukrainians liberated Staromaiorske, soldiers spent a month fighting alongside bodies of their enemies

EL PAÍS accompanied the 35th Ukrainian Marine Artillery Brigade, shortly before its soldiers retook the town on the southern front of the Donetsk province

LUIS DE VEGA
Donetsk southern front - JUL 29, 2023 - 11:00 COT

For a month, the body of a Russian soldier was lying less than a dozen feet away from a Ukrainian army position. During this time, the group of men from the 35th Ukrainian Marine Artillery Brigade kept on shooting. They were south of the Donetsk province, at the gates of the Zaporizhzhia region. Their persistence was ultimately rewarded with the liberation of the town of Staromaiorske, which happened this past Thursday. The victory took place two days after the special envoy from EL PAÍS accompanied the soldiers to the front. For several weeks, Kyiv hadn’t been able to regain control of enclaves in this area.

 

A Ukrainian tank on Wednesday near Chasiv Yar (Donetsk region).IRYNA RYBAKOVA (AP)

Ukraine consolidates counteroffensive with attacks in Zaporizhzhia

The southern region, 80% of which is controlled by Moscow, is the strategic point where Kyiv is trying to break the corridor which connects the Crimean peninsula with the Donbas for Russians

Luis de Vega

Kylv

June 8, 2023

In an operation that could run for weeks or even months, Ukraine is trying to make a dent in the territory gained by the Russian army following the major invasion launched in February of last year. Clashes between local troops and Russian invaders in the southeast of the country have intensified in recent hours, particularly in the region of Zaporizhzhia, according to anonymous Ukrainian and Western testimonies, in a sign that the expected Ukrainian counteroffensive is consolidating. The first signs of the long-awaited military operation were recorded on Monday.

Ukrainian Rebels' 'Culture Minister' Wants Cartoonist Killed Over Breasts

Irina Filatova

Ukrainian Rebels' 'Culture Minister' Wants Cartoonist Killed Over Breasts

The Moscow Times
October 14, 2014

The self-proclaimed culture minister of the Luhansk People's Republic in Ukraine has demanded the execution of a satirist who drew an unflattering cartoon that depicted her naked.

Irina Filatova took offense with the cartoon, drawn by artist Irena Karpa, that hinted at her fondness for topless photo shoots and accused her of handing out indiscriminate sexual favors, local news site Lugradar.net reported Tuesday, citing an unidentified police source.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Amelina set aside most of her writing to document war crimes.
Photograph: Daniel Mordzinski

Poem About a Crow: a work by the killed Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina

Amelina has died, aged 37, from injuries sustained in a Russian missile strike in Kramatorsk

Monday 3 July 2023

Victoria Amelina was a Ukrainian novelist, poet and public intellectual. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of her country in 2022, she set aside most of her writing to document and research war crimes.

Amelina understood the risks she ran with this work, both as a citizen who chose to stay in her country during war, and as a writer facing an invading army bent on destroying Ukrainian national identity.

 

Banksy

For Ukrainians, poetry isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity during war

This article is more than 6 months old

Poetry is fulfilling a very human need – to make sense of the senseless and tell their stories

Charlotte Higgins
Friday 9 December 2022

“There is so much poetry coming out of Ukraine now that I’m barely keeping up with it,” the Ukrainian translator and scholar Oksana Maksymchuk tells me. It is hardly the first thing that one would expect of a country at war. But poetry’s ability to, as she says, “crystallise a particular moment in time, or an emotion that is fleeting”, has led to an outpouring of poems – not so much emotion recollected in tranquillity, as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. Often these poems are posted by their authors on social media; the literary journal 

 

Ukrainian service members fire a shell from a M777 Howitzer at a front line
in Kharkiv as Russia's war on Ukraine continues. Photograph: Gleb Garanich/Reuters

Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 149 of the invasion

Russia and Ukraine expected to sign deal on Friday to resume Black Sea grain exports; Moscow’s forces ‘about to run out of steam’, UK intelligence chief claims

• Samantha Lock
• Friday 22 July 2022
• 
  

• A deal to resume Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports is expected to be signed by Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations on Friday. The agreement will be put in writing by the parties and signed at the Dolmabahce Palace offices at 1.30pm GMT, the office of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said. Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, added: “In summary, a document may be signed which will bind the sides to [ensure] safe functioning of export routes in the Black Sea.”

 

Mikhail Bulgakov

The battle for Bulgakov's nationality

Russia and Ukraine are engaged in a cultural cold war over the nationality of one of the world's most celebrated playwrights

Kelly Nestruck
Thu 11 Dec 2008 15.21 GMT

Few would disagree that Mikhail Bulgakov is a great writer. But is the man who wrote Flight and A Cabal of Hypocrites a great Russian writer, or a great Ukrainian writer? Or, can any country that exists today really lay full claim to him?

Books and writers / Bulgakov

 

Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940)

Ukrainian journalist, playwright, novelist, and short story writer, whose major work was the Gogolesque fantasy The Master and Margarita. In the story the Devil visits Stalinist Moscow to see if he can do some good. The book is considered a major Russian novel of the 20th century. It first appeared in a censored form in the Soviet journal Moskva in 1966-67. Bulgakov used satire and fantasy also in his other works, among them the short story collection Diaboliad (1925).

Books and writers / Gogol

Nikolai Gogol
Ilustration by Pablo García

 

Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) Nikolai (Vasilyevich) Gogol

Great Ukrainian novelist, dramatist, satirist, founder of the so-called critical realism in Russian literature, best-known for his novel Mertvye dushi I-II (1842, Dead Souls). Gogol's prose is characterized by imaginative power and linguistic playfulness. As an exposer of grotesque in human nature, Gogol could be called the Hieronymus Bosch of Russian literature.

Books and writers / Anna Akhmatova

 

Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)  Pseudonym of Anna Andreyevna Gorenko

One of the greatest Ukrainian poets of the 20th-century, who became a legend in her own time as a poet and symbol of artistic integrity. Anna Akhmatova's work is characterized by precision, clarity, and economy. She wrote with apparent simplicity and naturalness and her rhyming was classical compared to such radical contemporary writers as Marina Tsvetaeva and Vladimir Mayakovsky.

How many Russian soldiers have died in the war in Ukraine?

 

Units of the Russian Armed Forces enter Kyiv region, Ukraine, in this screengrab obtained
from a video by Reuters on March 3, 2022. Photograph: Russian Defence Ministry/Reuters

How many Russian soldiers have died in the war in Ukraine?

Analysis: Some say the country’s losses could rival those of its wars in Chechnya or Afghanistan

Andrew Roth
Tue 22 March 2022

It has been three weeks since Russia updated the official death toll to its invasion in Ukraine, leaving open the question of how many of its soldiers have been killed or wounded in the chaotic opening stages of its war.

Cannibalism and genocide / The horrific visions of Ukraine’s best loved artist

Feed me … one of Prymachenko’s works which c

Cannibalism and genocide: the horrific visions of Ukraine’s best loved artist

Maria Prymachenko created seemingly happy scenes of rural life. But look closer and you see the terror unleashed on her country by Stalin. Now her work has once again become a national symbol, duplicated at rallies worldwide

Jonathan Jones
Friday 18 March 2022

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.

 

Illustration by Gaifman

Odessa Tales with Boris Khersonsky

By The Odessa Review 
August 12, 2016

During the first year that the ‘City Semibasement’ Club was first opened in Odessa, it was so well-attended that it was absolutely impossible to get in – and there wasn’t much reason to, anyway. It is anyway much better to breathe the air of freedom on the Primorsky Boulevard or on the Bolshoy Fontan, preferably alone or as part of a twosome. I had a hard time explaining this to both the Odessa Intelligentsia and the Odessa Literary Community. They both proudly wore club pins with the slogan ‘From the underground into the Semibasement!’ and spent all their evenings there.

Stand Up / The Old New Humor

 

Stand Up: The Old New Humor

By Olga Lumerovskaya 
October 19, 2016

A rumination on the place of stand-up comedy in contemporary Ukraine.

For a long time stand-up as a comic style did not really have a well defined form. The first acts that could be considered stand-up comedy took place in British music halls in the 18th and 19th centuries, where comedians filled the pauses between performers with freestyle jokes. The emergence of “The Fringe” arts festival in the middle of the 20th century marked the dawn of real British stand-up. With the post-war decline of music hall entertainment, stand-up eventually moved on to clubs where it could reach a wider audience of ordinary people, which in turn necessitated a constant flow of new comedic material. At this point, stand-up comedy acquired a regulated conventional structure and the monologues became a unique form of modern philosophy, shaping it into the genre of humor that we know today.

 

German writers on Odessa

By The Odessa Review

July 8, 2016

Odessa was very far away, even for most of the Germans living in Russia. Traveling there was difficult, and many Europeans could never imagine that such a beautiful a city was to be found in the south of the Czar’s empire. Though the busy port nevertheless attracted a considerable number of Germans from Germany, Austria, and the Baltic provinces of Russia, it was for economic rather than literary purposes. It is for this reason that, with a few very noteworthy exceptions, Odessa hardly ever appears in German literature.
Even German playwright and journalist Wilhelm Wolfsohn (1820-1865), who himself was an important mediator between German and Russian literature, and who grew there, never wrote about his native city.

 

Sidney Reilly

James Bond is From Odessa

By Brian Mefford -
July 18, 2016

From Ukraine with Love: Hollywood’s favorite British spy, James Bond, was inspired by the great Odessa born adventurer.

 
Everyone knows the world’s most famous secret agent, James Bond. British author Ian Fleming’s hero has been a box office star for more than half a century. Bond is celebrated around the globe for his brilliant mind, wild adventures, and debonair charm. “Women want him, and men want to be him”. What most people don’t know is that James Bond has his origins in Odessa, Ukraine.