From February 2022 onward, we are living under the circumstances which our parents and grandparents were constantly, permanently afraid of: ‘ whatever, but it should be a war’ was the mantra of two generations of people in Europe throughout the second part of the XX century, after the end of the Second World War. Hearing it non-stop, without the physical realities of a war, we were somewhat weary of this mantra. We did not understand our grandparents and our parents. We did not know about life under bombardment, and everything else that war brings. It is understandable and even natural psychologically: those who had no personal physical experience of events and phenomena, have actually no clue of it, being honest about it.
Now we who are not young any longer have to learn how to live when a war is here, within the circumstances of a war.
Since day one of the Mean War, I am filling a catalogue of specific phenomena appearing in this war of the XXI century. As a historian, who specialised on the Holocaust and post-Holocaust, I do believe in the power and strength of an eye-witness’ documentation. I realise the value of such documents.
The week 17th of the Mean War demonstrated the problems with and around food safety emphatically. Those problems started earlier in the war, as it usually happened. But due to the geography, logistics, and season, the matters of food safety started to loom now. And it looms world-wide. While strategists and governments are seeing and dealing with these serious global matters, there are also food-safety issues on a personal level for so many people in Ukraine. Those issues are vital, literally, and they are going on, unsolved, for four months now.
There are documented stories about hungry children, hungry elderly in Ukraine, both in the front zone, and under the occupied by ‘the liberators’ territories. Children and elderly are the most vulnerable of us. So, my attention turns to them first.
* Hungry children, hungry elderly
There is the story of a six-year old boy from Mariupol. His name is Ilja. Nice, gentle boy. He lost both parents early in the war. His mom went to get some food, was crossing the bridge, and fell victim to heavy bombardment of it along with many other victims. In a couple of days, Ilja’s father, being extremely worried about his wife, decided to get out the basement to look for her. With some sixth feeling, he brought his boy to the neighbours, entrusting them with Ilja’s birth certificate. As if feeling the worst. And the worst happened. The father was also killed on Mariupol street. Ilja, now an orphan, was going through the ordeal of Mariupol with his family’s neighbours who were looking after him until some volunteers managed to get the boy to safety in Kyiv. He is quiet, this very nice boy, very quiet. But now started to open up, slowly, on what he went through. He said to the people who would like to adopt him and are caring for him, that he ‘was so hungry back in Mariupol that he was eating his friend’s toys’. This is the face of the Mean War. The one of the faces.
The other is the face of a 72-year old man , also from Mariupol. His name is Pavel. Only he is in such a condition that his relatives, being humane and considerate, decided not to take his pictures. They only took, discreetly, photos of Pavel’s hand, and also his leg, so the world would see that decimation can become a routine in the XXI century in the centre of Europe. But we have Pavel’s pictures before the war, so we know whom we are talking about. The dramatic story of Pavel, in the similar way of the tragic story of a small Ilja boy exemplifies torment of so many people in Ukraine. Pavel is one of those who could not evacuate from his home in Mariupol. There are 100 000 people living in the city currently, after all the horror, and they still live in a daily and permanent horror. For all the time of the war, 72-year old Pavel was at mercy of his neighbours who did share with him all food that they used to have, as much as he did his modest food supply to be shared with them. Then the food ended. And then Pavel has received a humanitarian food parcel from ‘the liberators’. Typically, all canned meat in that parcel was far beyond its consumption date, and hungry people had to throw it away. It was so bad and smelly. In general, the parcel contained some food supplies which would be scarcely enough for a person for a person for a week, but it was marked by occupiers as ‘humanitarian food relief for one family for a month’.
The level of stealing in Russia is always dizzying, and it transpires in any direction of life. In this case, it concerns people’s survival, literally. But who cares? Nothing new there. Except that the level of decimation to which ‘the liberators’ has pushed thousands of the people whom Russia calls their neighbours demands an official international investigation of torture of civilian population.
Pavel has received the food parcel just once. Only once. When his relatives managed to get to him, which is still an extremely difficult task in ‘liberated’ Mariupol, they were shocked to find him in the condition of severe malnutrition. They managed to evacuate the 72-year old man to Ukrainian territory, and now are trying hard to return him to life. As 6-year old Ilya, 72-year old Pavel , after months of hunger, is permanently hungry. His family, which saved him after months of torment, is very worried . They are also naturally shocked by the degree of cruelty towards helpless civilians which ‘the liberators’ have demonstrated to their liberating best. “Nothing can prepare normal people to see so many so decimated human beings which were reduced to such a degree of malnutrition for nothing”, Pavel’s niece who has documented everything that has happened to her uncle and many other people in Mariupol, says in her evidence. One cannot agree more.
- Agricultural Looting at Large
Since the beginning of the Mean War, ‘the liberators’ had their eye on rich Ukraine agricultural resources, in all and every aspect of it. What is known today as a serious looming global food crisis due to the blockaded ports in Ukraine, had many more details in its making, and it concerned everything, from chicken to tractors. We all know by now that Russia sends trains full of grain from Ukraine to Syria, it is properly documented, including the satellite pictures. But in the horrors of the Mean war, especially at her initial active stages, public attention was averted from many awful incidents concerning food safety which were happening in attacked Ukraine regulargy. Yet in the first month of the Mean War, ‘the liberators’ simply stole an entire strategic 3-year 100 tons grain storage from the then Ukrainian controlled large part of Luhansk region. That storage was sold by the aggressors abroad.
When our grandparents were telling us about their experience during the Second World War, which was not much, but something that was imprinted into their own conscience, the one of the most terrifying for them stories was how yet before WWII was started, against the background of devastating Stalin-imposed famine in Ukraine, people there, including my grandparents were seeing ‘trains and trains with grain from us ( Ukraine) to Germany which were sending off vitaly needed food at the moment when people literally were dying of hunger in thousands. We all were shocked to see those trains full with our grain leaving from here towards Germany. We could not get it. But then we saw something that we could not understand at all. We saw the trains leaving from here full of soil, our Ukrainian multi-rich soil which the government ordered to get off the ground everywhere here ( in Ukraine) and also sent to Germany, by long cargo trains, days and nights. We were stunned. People were dying here all around of hunger. And not only all our grain, but also all our soil was taken from us and sent to Germany, of all places” – my grandmother and grandfather who were not any dissidents at all, just normal reasonable people, were telling me with such horror in their eyes, such indefinite sadness which went nowhere many decades after the events they witnessed in the late 1930s in their hometown, that their shock was transferred to me, and is still there more than a half of century on.
And now we are seeing the same thing in its essence again. State orchestrated and conducted intentional deprivation of food, stealing of food, organising deliberate shortage of food which massively affects children and elderly. There are certainly die-hard traditions in Russia, but is there not enough harm done, with freed hands already? And are there international legal mechanisms for criminal activities to be responded adequately? Just saying.
Also in the beginning of the war, ‘the liberators’ were keen to steal many agriculture machines in Ukraine, and as a matter of fact, they did manage to move them away from there far inside Russia’s territory. But then, they could not use it, as Ukrainian owners were able to block the stolen machines remotely. Did it stop the process? Of course, not.
Yet, a week after the beginning of the Mean War, ‘the liberators’ deliberately destroyed a special electrical plant in Chernobayevka in Ukraine. That plant provided electricity to the largest chicken factory in Europe. Additionally, ‘the liberators’ deliberately cut off all logistics supplying feeding to millions of chickens produced and grown up at the factory. People working at the plant tried their best in spreading still alive chicken and eggs among the local population. But that was all that they could do. In the result of that targeted elimination of a colossal amount of food, more than four million chickens died at the plant. Of hunger. Four millions. Of hunger. XXI century. Centre of Europe. Sometimes, one would like to be deprived of news and reports. But our selfish wishes are actually nothing in comparison with the realities of war. Especially the Mean War.
- Weaponizing Food, Instrumentalizing Hunger
According to all experts and strategists, now on, after four months of war, and in a 2-3 months perspective, the problem with global food supplies from Ukraine has become the most acute among all other aspects of the unfolding military conflict. Russia does it deliberately, as everyone knows and sees it, shamelessly weaponizing food and instrumentalising hunger. To be short, a state behaves in a gangster style. It has to be publicly clarified that a state-permanent member of the UN Security Council is using food, the basic human right, as a weapon, both political and military. This process which has become acute now, due to the forthcoming harvest season, has started and is unfolding simultaneously with Russian aggression in Ukraine. Yet at the end of March, there were official UN reports urging the ‘liberating’ blockade of as many as 94 cargo ships from leaving different Ukrainian ports with various kinds of food supplies. Three of those ships were bombed. The situation is worsening progressingly, and there is not only Ukrainian grain which is stolen or blocked. As of today, more than 20 million tons of grain are blocked by Russia from leaving Ukraine for its global destinations. At the same time, Russia, as if out of blue, has doubled its trade and export of grain during the last three months.
If any other country, Russia knew precisely well the scope of agricultural products successfully cultivated in Ukraine, and share of those products in the global food supplies system. When starting their operation, they knew very well that Ukraine is the third largest exporter of rapeseed in the world, the fourth largest exporter of corn, and the fifth largest exporter of wheat. They also knew that Ukraine supplies more than 40% of the sunflower oil to the world and 16% of maize. This additionally to a critically important export of fertilisers, and many other essential agricultural products, from barley to sugar beet.
By orchestrating the blockade of Ukrainian ports, ‘the liberators’ are reaching two purposes: blackmailing the international community, and weakening Ukraine quite substantially. Ukraine is largely an agricultural country, thanks to its super-fertile soil, the country uses up to 2/3d of its territory for developing agriculture. Agriculture provides over 10% of Ukraine’s GDP, 20% of the country’s labour forces, and more than 40% of its exports. So, paralysing Ukraine’s agricultural sector is part of ‘the liberating’ strategy. This should be realised. That’s why, ‘the liberators’ are bombing and firing at wheat terminals in Ukraine today, as it was done massively during the week 17th in Mykolaiv and other places, with precision and determingly. In Mykolaiv, the largest wheat terminal was destroyed completely during this week, in a massive fire after precise bombardment. Previously, huge grain storage facilities were also bombed and destroyed in Zaporizhia and other regions. In general, according to the UN, up to 20% of elevators in Ukraine have been deliberately destroyed. It does tell something about Russia’s food safety strategy-2022, does it not? And it also tells what kind of partner that country is. The one which enjoys manipulating the basic, primary need – food supplies world-wide.
- News of the week 17: “ Dear God, please help me to charge my phone, to call my mom”. Dmitry Muratov as the force of Goodness.
The story about a small boy in Ukraine who was praying to God to charge his phone to call his mom was told by the great man, Russian citizen Dmitry Muratov this week in New York. Editor-in -Chief of the Novaya Gazeta ( dysfunctional today), the Nobel Peace Prize laureate 2021, since the beginning of the Mean War Muratov decided to sell his Nobel medal for helping Ukrainian children refugees. I wrote about Dmitry’s noble decision at the time while covering the Day 28th of the Mean War in this project.
American Heritage Auction House has organised the charitable sale of the Muratov’s Nobel medal on this 17th week of the war. The unique lot fetched an unprecedented price of $ 103, 5 million. Heritage House did not take any proceeds, with all the money to be delivered to UNICEF for addressed help to all the countries which are hosting about 6, 5 million Ukrainian children refugees.
I have known Muratov, his colleagues and his newspaper for over 25 years. I am very glad to know such worthy people, to have some of them as my colleagues, and to enjoy our friendship which lasts so many years. Dmitry always is economical with his words, he is basically an introvertive, thoughtful man who does not brag. He lives his life in an inner way, and does it emphatically decently.
The Nobel Peace laureate had quite a short speech introducing the auctioning of his medal in New York at the week 17 of the war. He told the audience about the prayer of an Ukrainian boy that Muratove was told about: “Dear God, please help me to charge my phone, to call my mom”. “ I would like to ask each of you today to think about this boy as about your own son” – said Muratov on the Heritage Auction House stage in New York.
I tried to express Dmitry Muratov’s status in this otherwise desperate situation, and what Dmitry symbolises for me, in my new artwork:
Indeed. I share this request of the great man Dmitry Muratov to the international audience. And I also would like to ask each of you to think about that 6-year Ilja boy from Mariupol who had to eat his friend’s toys, and that 72-year old Pavel who was decimated severely because of hunger there in Mariupol, as of our relatives. That’s why I am telling their stories.