TORKIV, Ukraine—At the entrance to the village cemetery, where they buried Vasyl Pushkar, stands a tall, gray stone marker.
The stone is engraved with an Orthodox cross and the words ”Holodomor, 1932-33,” a memorial to the four million or more Ukrainian peasants who were starved to death by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin when their farms were collectivized and their harvests seized.
Ninety years later, Vladimir Putin is sending food prices for poor nations soaring by blocking Ukraine's grain exports, which come from black earth villages such as Torkiv, a community of a thousand people about 200 miles south of Kyiv. Meantime, on Monday, village residents gathered to bury their latest casualty from Moscow's current genocidal effort to erase Ukraine from the map.
No wonder the pain and the defiance here run deep.
Mobilized in March, the 42-year-old Pushkar died from wounds sustained in a mine explosion on the war's front lines in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. After four weeks in the hospital, he fell into a coma, shortly after speaking with his 3-year-old daughter for the last time.
The village turned out the day before the funeral to line the narrow road and kneel as the body was delivered to his parents' tidy cottage. When I entered their living room, a picture of a handsome man in uniform held pride of place on the mantle. It bore little resemblance to the torn and reassembled face in the coffin nearby.
Bent over her son, Pushkar's mother constantly rearranged the surrounding bouquets of flowers, as his father wept by her side.
The skies were deeply overcast, and rain spattered the road as soldier colleagues carried Pushkar's body the last two miles from his parents' home to the burial ground. The coffin had been carefully wrapped in the Ukrainian flag.
Elderly female mourners, bent over walking sticks, trudged up the road without assistance. A local band, with tuba and bass drum, played funeral music along the route. Police officers knelt by the roadside as the cortege passed.
Noticeable by their absence were men of military age. They were all at the front.
At the cemetery, the coffin was opened one more time. Pushkar's wife, who had stood like a black-clad statue throughout the religious service, threw herself onto the casket and kissed her husband's face, chest, and feet. His mother and father sobbed uncontrollably.
Then the coffin lid was carefully screwed on once again, the flag was folded and handed to the widow, and the body lowered into the grave.
The village's anger at Putin's brutal war exploded when the crowd gathered to hear a senior officer from Pushkar's 59th Brigade eulogize the sacrifice of their fallen son.
”Give us a promise,” a woman shouted at Major Andre (identified here by his military call sign). ”Give us a promise that when this war is over, you will build an alley of heroes for all the sons who have died from this village.” The major swiftly responded, ”I promise not only an alley but also their portraits will be in the school where they studied. These heroes never die. They go on living in our hearts.”
I caught up with a visibly moved Major Andre as the crowd dispersed. He has been to 20 such funerals of men from battalions within the 59th Brigade. He would have attended many more had his military duties not made that impossible.
”This is the answer to why we have to move slowly,” he told me bitterly, pointing back at the grave site. He was referring to critiques from U.S. officials that the current Ukrainian counteroffensive against the Russians has not moved quickly enough. But lacking air cover (given the long-delayed delivery of U.S.-made F-16s, and possessing only limited numbers of old Soviet-made planes), Ukraine's military leaders have slowed their attack lest their infantry be slaughtered.
”What [Ukrainian military commander Valery] Zaluzhny is doing is absolutely correct, respecting the life of every soldier,” the major continued, vehemently. ”Of course we will win, but it is about the amount of losses it will take.”
What eats at Major Andre, and at so many soldiers and officers I met on the front lines, is that their losses could have been slashed if Washington had not delayed the arrival of F-16s until next spring. And the number of Ukrainian dead still could be cut if the White House would finally green-light the long-range ATACMS missiles that could destroy Russian bases and supply depots far behind fighting lines. ”It will cost too many losses without ATACMS,” the major said.
He then took out his iPhone and showed me photos of the bodies of two of his men who were captured by Russian troops in the Donbas region. They had been tortured, with tongues cut out and throats slashed. He flicked through more shots of distorted bodies, dead from the fumes of old chemical shells the Russians periodically fire.
The Ukrainian military takes great risks to recover the bodies of their fallen, he stressed, while the Russians leave many of their dead and wounded behind and even booby-trap the bodies.
”How can we negotiate with such people?” the major demanded — a query I have heard repeatedly on this trip.
What grieved this officer even more is that many Americans and Europeans don't seem to grasp that this is not a war about NATO. It is a battle for Ukraine's very survival that affects all of Europe and the United States.
”Now Ukraine stands on the border [in Europe] between good and evil, between darkness and light. We are defending the values of the whole civilized world. The West should understand this,” he said.
As we drove away from the cemetery, the clouds lifted. We passed a stretch of golden sunflowers whose ubiquitous presence in Ukrainian farmlands always lifts the spirits. I believe Ukraine could drive the Russians out in the coming months if it gets the weapons it needs now for this counteroffensive.
Yet, on leaving Torkiv, it was painful to realize how many more Ukrainians will be grieving their dead in villages and cities if the U.S. doesn't act decisively to help end this war.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Trudy Rubin
Philadelphia Inquirer
(TNS)
Previously:
• 07/28/23: As Russian missiles again rain down on Odesa, Putin sneers at the UN and NATO allies
• 07/24/23: Putin is playing a game of food blackmail. The West can't let him win
• 07/19/23: Can Ukraine win the war against Russia? I'm traveling there to find out
• 07/17/23: From hell to Harvard: One Ukrainian's escape and how you can help fulfill her dreams
• 07/11/23: At the NATO summit in Vilnius: Will Biden seize or squander the chance to end Putin's war on Ukraine?
• 04/21/23: The Pentagon documents leak will embolden Putin as he tries to outlast Ukraine
• 03/22/23: The Russian attack on a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone underlines why we must help Ukraine win
• 03/15/23: Will the White House have the courage to propel a Ukrainian victory this year?
• 02/21/23: On the first anniversary of Putin's invasion, Ukraine fights on for its independence and for the security of the West
• 02/17/23: A former Pakistani leader's death, and his wise peace plan that failed
• 02/09/23: Earthquakes killed nearly 12,000 people this week. Three men are partly to blame
• 01/24/23: As Russia murders civilians in Dnipro, why won't NATO send weapons that could end the war?
• 12/28/22: What Zelensky worried about when he addressed a cheering Congress
• 12/13/22: The US-China conflict to watch is the Chip War --- which centers on Taiwan
• 09/14/22: Ukraine scores sudden breakthrough that should energize Western support
• 09/09/22: Queen Elizabeth's death deprives Britain and the world of a rock of stability
• 09/08/22: After Gorbachev's death, Putin wants the world to know he is the 'anti-Gorbi'
• 08/26/22: 6 months after Russia's war vs. Ukraine began, the West still won't give Kiev the weapons to win
• 08/15/22: Ukraine's civilian volunteers work to give aid and rebuild, even as Russia continues to bomb them
• 08/08/22: A trip near the front lines finds Ukrainian troops ready for a battle that could decide the war
• 06/13/22: The critical battles for Ukraine and for America are being fought right here, right now
• 05/02/22: Save Odesa to save the world from hunger and high food prices
• 05/02/22: Bloodless Ukrainian War, not utopian fantasy says one-time largest foreign investor in Russia
• 04/11/22: The only way to end Putin's war crimes
• 03/28/22: Don't let Putin's nuclear and chemical threats stop us from giving Ukraine what it needs
• 03/24/22: An elegy for Mariupol, where I walked six weeks ago. Now razed by Russian bombs
• 03/18/22: Zelensky's brilliant speech should impel Biden and Congress to protect Ukrainian skies
• 03/11/22: Mariupol's bombed maternity hospital exemplifies why NATO should protect Ukraine's skies
• 03/10/22: No 'no-fly zone'? Then NATO must find another way to protect Ukraine's skies
• 03/07/22: The third World War has already started in Ukraine. Europe and the US should wake up
• 03/04/22:Putin must be stopped from turning Kiev into Aleppo
• 03/02/22:Why is Belarus helping Russia invade Ukraine? An explainer on the latest in the conflict
• 02/25/22: What the UN should finally do about Russia
• 02/24/22: Why Putin's Ukraine aggression will change the world --- an explainer on how we got here
• 02/10/22: Ukrainian civilians train for war with cardboard guns: 'We are scared but we are ready
• 01/13/22:Putin wants to reestablish the Russian empire. Can NATO stop him without war?
• 12/10/21: Can Biden and NATO prevent Putin from invading Ukraine? Summit puts it to the test
• 12/02/21: Boris Johnson stirs up new Irish Troubles for his own personal political gains
• 11/22/21: Xi Jinping thinks America is on the rocks. Is he correct?
• 08/18/21: President Biden, get our Afghan allies on evacuation planes
• 08/18/21:The horror of Afghan women abandoned by Biden's troop pullout
• 08/09/21:China is pushing a big COVID-19 lie that makes a new pandemic harder to prevent
• 05/27/21: Punish Belarus leader for Ryanair hijacking before air piracy becomes dictators' new tool
• 04/14/21: Can Beethoven temper the political tensions between US and China?
• 06/01/20: US must stand with Hong Kong against Beijing's efforts to crush its freedoms
• 05/20/20: COVID-19 offers a chance to halt Iran's hostage diplomacy
• 05/21/14: Newscycle spurs visit to country my family fled
• 04/21/14: Blind to Putin's strategy?
• 12/24/13: Obama's Syrian indifference has led to more death and destruction. Meet some real heroes
• 12/13/13: Where liberals have come to love the military
• 12/09/13: The China strategy
• 11/05/13: Return to Iraq is worth a close look
• 10/01/13: Obama's call to Iran: Who was really on the line?
• 09/11/13: How Obama got Syria so wrong
• 07/24/13: It's time for Obama to tell Putin 'nyet'
• 05/15/13: What Russia gave Kerry on Syria --- very little
Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.